Zhiliang Wei

Partial homogeneity based high-resolution nuclear magnetic resonance spectra under inhomogeneous magnetic fields

In nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) technique, it is of great necessity and importance to obtain high-resolution spectra, especially under inhomogeneous magnetic fields. In this study, a method based on partial homogeneity is proposed for retrieving high-resolution one-dimensional NMR spectra under inhomogeneous fields. Signals from series of small voxels, which characterize high resolution due to small sizes, are recorded simultaneously. Then, an inhomogeneity correction algorithm is developed based on pattern recognition to correct the influence brought by field inhomogeneity automatically, thus yielding high-resolution information. Experiments on chemical solutions and fish spawn were carried out to demonstrate the performance of the proposed method. The proposed method serves as a single radiofrequency pulse high-resolution NMR spectroscopy under inhomogeneous fields and may provide an alternative of obtaining high-resolution spectra of in vivo living systems or chemical-reaction systems, where performances of conventional techniques are usually degenerated by field inhomogeneity.

Measuring JHH values with a selective constant-time 2D NMR protocol

Proton-proton scalar couplings play important roles in molecule structure elucidation. However, measurements of JHH values in complex coupled spin systems remain challenging. In this study, we develop a selective constant-time (SECT) 2D NMR protocol with which scalar coupling networks involving chosen protons can be revealed, and corresponding JHH values can be measured through doublets along the F1 dimension. All JHH values within a network of n fully coupled protons can be separately determined with (n-1) SECT experiments. Additionally, the proposed pulse sequence possesses satisfactory sensitivity and handy implementation. Therefore, it will interest scientists who intend to address structural analyzes of molecules with overcrowded spectra, and may greatly facilitate the applications of scalar-coupling constants in molecule structure studies.

Line broadening interference for high-resolution nuclear magnetic resonance spectra under inhomogeneous magnetic fields.

Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy serves as an important tool for analyzing chemicals and biological metabolites. However, its performance is subject to the magnetic-field homogeneity. Under inhomogeneous fields, peaks are broadened to overlap each other, introducing difficulties for assignments. Here, we propose a method termed as line broadening interference (LBI) to provide high-resolution information under inhomogeneous magnetic fields by employing certain gradients in the indirect dimension to interfere the magnetic-field inhomogeneity. The conventional spectral-line broadening is thus interfered to be non-diagonal, avoiding the overlapping among adjacent resonances. Furthermore, an inhomogeneity correction algorithm is developed based on pattern recognition to recover the high-resolution information from LBI spectra. Theoretical deductions are performed to offer systematic and detailed analyses on the proposed method. Moreover, experiments are conducted to prove the feasibility of the proposed method for yielding high-resolution spectra in inhomogeneous magnetic fields.

Ultrafast localized two-dimensional magnetic resonance correlated spectroscopy via spatially encoded technique.

To speed up acquisition of localized two‐dimensional (2D) correlated spectroscopy (LCOSY).

Ultrafast multidimensional nuclear magnetic resonance technique: A proof of concept based on inverse-k-space for convenient and efficient performance

Ultrafast multidimensional nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) technique serves as an important and powerful tool for analyzing chemical and biological systems. Here, we propose an inverse-k-space along with a systematic processing strategy to improve quality of the ultrafast spectrum in terms of lineshape, signal-to-noise ratio, and adaptability to magnetic-field inhomogeneity. Experiments on phantom solutions and a chemical reaction system were performed to validate the effectiveness of inverse-k-space in enhancing the spectral quality of ultrafast technique. On the basis of its versatility, the inverse-k-space will facilitate applications of multidimensional NMR spectra in the rapid characterization of homogeneous chemical systems as well as in the real-time detection of inhomogeneous reaction systems.

Discrete decoding based ultrafast multidimensional nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy.

The three-dimensional (3D) nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy constitutes an important and powerful tool in analyzing chemical and biological systems. However, the abundant 3D information arrives at the expense of long acquisition times lasting hours or even days. Therefore, there has been a continuous interest in developing techniques to accelerate recordings of 3D NMR spectra, among which the ultrafast spatiotemporal encoding technique supplies impressive acquisition speed by compressing a multidimensional spectrum in a single scan. However, it tends to suffer from tradeoffs among spectral widths in different dimensions, which deteriorates in cases of NMR spectroscopy with more dimensions. In this study, the discrete decoding is proposed to liberate the ultrafast technique from tradeoffs among spectral widths in different dimensions by focusing decoding on signal-bearing sites. For verifying its feasibility and effectiveness, we utilized the method to generate two different types of 3D spectra. The proposed method is also applicable to cases with more than three dimensions, which, based on the experimental results, may widen applications of the ultrafast technique.

High-resolution localized spatiotemporal encoding correlated spectra under inhomogeneous magnetic fields via asymmetrical gradient encoding/decoding.

Applications of conventional localized nuclear magnetic resonance correlated spectroscopy are restrained by long acquisition times and poor performance under inhomogeneous magnetic fields. Here, a method that combines the spatiotemporal encoding technique with the localization technique and implements the encoding and decoding in unison with suitable asymmetrical gradients is proposed to obtain high‐resolution localized correlated spectra under inhomogeneous fields in greatly reduced times. Experiments on phantom solutions prove its insensitivity to linear field inhomogeneities along three orthogonal axes. Moreover, this method is applied to adipose study of marrow tissue with resolution improvements. The proposed method may offer promising perspectives for fast analyses of biological tissues. Copyright

Reverse detection for spectral width improvements in spatially encoded dimensions of ultrafast two‐dimensional NMR spectra

Recently, the spatially encoded technique has been broadly used in the fast analyses of chemical systems and real‐time detections of chemical reactions. In spatially encoded ultrafast 2D spectra, spectral widths and resolution in spatially encoded dimensions are contradictive, leading to the risk of insufficient spectral widths when providing satisfactory resolution values for all resonances. Here, a method named as reverse detection is proposed to improve the spectral width in the spatially encoded dimension. Experimental results show that spectral width improvements are at least twofold with reverse detection solely, and more improvements can be expected along with the gradient‐controlled folding method. The proposed method can be applied to almost any spatially encoded scheme with echo planar spectroscopic imaging—like detection module and may promote wide applications of ultrafast 2D spectroscopy techniques in chemical analyses. Copyright

A method based on covariance and pattern recognition for improving resolutions of spatially encoded NMR spectra

The spatially encoded technique enables the fast acquisition of two‐dimensional (2D) nuclear magnetic resonance spectrum within a single scan, serving as a powerful tool for studying various systems and phenomena in short time scales. In spatially encoded spectroscopy, the resolution in the direct dimension can be enhanced by increasing effective acquisition times. However, spectral widths and resolutions in indirect dimensions are no longer independent of each other with wider spectral widths yielding lower resolution. The covariance method, which has achieved success in enhancing resolutions in the indirect dimensions of conventional 2D spectroscopy, is employed here to improve resolutions in the spatially encoded dimension. Moreover, an algorithm is developed based on pattern recognition to eliminate artifacts arising from the employment of the covariance method and experimental imperfections in recording the spatially encoded spectra. Therefore, high‐resolution homonuclear 2D correlated spectra are obtained. Experiments are performed to show the feasibility and effectiveness of this proposed method in providing high‐resolution spectra within greatly shortened times. Copyright

Improving spectral resolution in spatial encoding dimension of single-scan nuclear magnetic resonance 2D spin echo correlated spectroscopy

The spatial encoding technique can be used to accelerate the acquisition of multi-dimensional nuclear magnetic resonance spectra. However, with this technique, we have to make trade-offs between the spectral width and the resolution in the spatial encoding dimension (F1 dimension), resulting in the difficulty of covering large spectral widths while preserving acceptable resolutions for spatial encoding spectra. In this study, a selective shifting method is proposed to overcome the aforementioned drawback. This method is capable of narrowing spectral widths and improving spectral resolutions in spatial encoding dimensions by selectively shifting certain peaks in spectra of the ultrafast version of spin echo correlated spectroscopy (UFSECSY). This method can also serve as a powerful tool to obtain high-resolution correlated spectra in inhomogeneous magnetic fields for its resistance to any inhomogeneity in the F1 dimension inherited from UFSECSY. Theoretical derivations and experiments have been carried out to demonstrate performances of the proposed method. Results show that the spectral width in spatial encoding dimension can be reduced by shortening distances between cross peaks and axial peaks with the proposed method and the expected resolution improvement can be achieved. Finally, the shifting-absent spectrum can be recovered readily by post-processing.