Human cardiac phosphorus Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy at 7 T

Phosphorous Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (31P-MRS) can be used to measure high-energy phosphate metabolites, providing a valuable contribution to our understanding of metabolism in both the healthy and diseased heart. The Cardiac Spectroscopy Group at the University of Oxford, have demonstrated the best human cardiac 31P spectra [1] using a state-of-the-art 7 Tesla MRI scanner. Since this first study, the group have upgraded to an advanced 16-element receive array coil made by Rapid Biomedical GmbH, the leading manufacturer of radiofrequency (RF) coils for non-proton spectroscopy and imaging. This array further increased the receive SNR by 1.8x [2] compared to the first results [1]. The project will involve using the Rapid array coil to assess the reproducibility of existing protocols as well as developing a shorter protocol using the same hardware. These protocols can then be used to study diseases such as dilated cardiomyopathy, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, diabetes, ischaemia and heart failure in collaboration with clinical colleagues.

Knowledge of transverse relaxation times of 31P metabolites (31P T2s) are important for sequence optimisation and 31P T2s have potential as a biomarker for heart failure [3]. We will also develop a method to make the first measurement of human cardiac 31P T2s at 7T. We will quantify normal variation and reproducibility of 7T human cardiac T2 values in healthy volunteers.


1. Rodgers et al., Magn Res Med, 2014 DOI 10.1002/mrm.24922.
2. Rodgers et al., Proc ISMRM 2014 #2219.
3. Van Der Kemp et al., SpringerPlus 3, 634 (2014) doi:10.1186/2193-1801-3-634