Magnetic resonance spectroscopy: Principles and applications

© 2003 by CRC Press LLC. Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR/MRS) is the most sensitive and specific technique for determining chemical and macromolecular structures and conformations. Although nuclear magnetic resonance was discovered in the mid 1940s, it did not create a major impact in chemistry until the 1960s through improvements in magnets, computers and the introduction of Fourier transform (FT) methods. Although it was used in some early studies of biological systems, applications in biology developed from studies by Moon and Richards on red blood cells in 1973 and by Hoult et al. on skeletal muscle in 1974.1 MRS offered the promise of measuring biochemical compounds in intact biological tissue noninvasively and the ability to follow dynamic changes over time. As this chapter demonstrates, this promise has been realized - most effectively in the brain where it has offered new insights into disease and improved our understanding of metabolic processes and metabolic compartmentation.