Spatially localized phosphorus-31 nuclear magnetic resonance (31P NMR) spectroscopy has been applied to the study of the normal canine myocardium to measure the relative content of high energy phosphates across the left ventricular wall. Transmural NMR data were acquired in five voxels spanning the wall of the left ventricle using the FLAX-ISIS technique. The validity of the FLAX-ISIS approach in acquiring localized spectra for transmural studies and in providing quantitative information from the localized spectra was examined rigorously by studies involving phantoms, intact rats, and the canine myocardium in vivo. The results indicated that (1) this technique yields spatially resolved spectra with partial overlap between adjacent voxels and virtually no overlap between every other voxel; (2) in the canine heart, signals from subepicardium, midwall, and subendocardium can be detected separately without cross contamination; and (3) relative metabolite contents within a voxel and among voxels can be quantitated. Transmural 31P NMR spectra were acquired with cardiac gating on 29 separate animals either at early systole or late diastole, and at three different workloads with the heart rate peak systolic pressure product (RPP) increasing from 6000 mmHg/min to 35,000 mmHg/min. The data revealed that in the normal canine myocardium, the creatine phosphate (CP) content and the CP/ATP ratio was significantly lower in the subendocardium than in the subepicardium. ATP levels were transmurally constant. Both the CP content and the CP/ATP ratio measured for each voxel remained unaltered in relation to either the phase of the cardiac cycle or approximately fourfold increase in workload. Free ADP levels calculated for each voxel showed that ADP was relatively higher in the subendocardium than the subepicardium, and in all transmural layers was higher than its apparent Km for oxidative phosphorylation. In this domain changes in ADP content with workload and MVO2 are not expected and were not observed.

Adiabatic pulses have been employed in spectroscopic imaging and relaxation rate measurements at 4.7 T to demonstrate the feasibility of obtaining spectroscopic data from the complete sensitive volume of a surface coil using the surface coil as a transmitter and receiver. With conventional B 1 sensitive pulses, spectroscopic localization or imaging techniques, such as chemical‐shift imaging, yield resonance intensities that are distorted severely as a function of space, and maximal signal is detected from a small region within the complete sensitive volume of the coil. With adiabatic pulses, however, this problem is eliminated completely. In addition, a new method of spatial localization is introduced. This method, referred to as FLAX‐ISIS, is a derivative of longitudinally modulated Fourier series window and ISIS approaches and utilizes adiabatic inversion and excitation pulses. The method allows construction of localized spectra for multiple regions along the surface coil axis by postacquisition data manipulation of a single set of free induction decays. These techniques were applied to the study of the myocardium using an implanted surface coil in an instrumented closed‐chest canine model and in an open‐chest preparation. The results demonstrate that one‐dimensional techniques are adequate for transmural detection of metabolites provided signal origin is restricted to a column perpendicular to the left ventricle wall. © 1989 Academic Press, Inc.

Phosphorus-31 nuclear magnetic resonance (31P NMR) has been applied to study the canine heart prior to and during regional myocardial ischemia induced by partial flow reduction in the left anterior descending coronary artery (LAD). NMR data were acquired in a transmural fashion by restricting the signal to a column perpendicular to the heart wall using B0 gradients and obtaining spectroscopic spatial resolution along the third dimension using the B1 gradient and adiabatic excitation. With this approach, transmural spectra were accumulated in five separate voxels spanning the wall of the left ventricle from the epicardium to the endocardium. In the normal canine myocardium the levels of high-energy phosphates CP and ATP were relatively constant throughout the left ventricular wall, with only minor evidence of free inorganic phosphate in any of the transmural voxels. However, during sustained partial occlusion of the LAD, significant regional differences between the epi- and the endocardium were noted. The data demonstrate the importance of studying cardiac bioenergetics with transmural differentiation.