The Morris Research Group

Research in Nuclear Magnetic Resonance

As well as providing the most important structural tool in modern chemistry, magnetic resonance provides the basis of one of the most powerful imaging techniques available to medicine. Our collaborations with the Departments of Medical Biophysics and Diagnostic Radiology have led to a number of advances in MR imaging techniques, including binomial pulse methods for fat/water signal discrimination and an analysis of relaxation contrast in binomial pulse magnetization transfer contrast experiments. An unexpected by-product of the collaborations was the first complete set of analytical solutions of the Bloch equations, just in time for their 50th anniversary.

More recently we have been investigating methods for mapping brain pH, using Z-spectroscopy to measure the pH-dependent rate of exchange between water and amide protons. One unexpected complication is that in high field systems radiation damping can cause the same sort of Z-spectral asymmetery as amide exchange if care is not taken to ensure that the probe is at exact electrical resonance.

• "Direct Observation of the Magnetization Exchange Dynamics Responsible for Magnetization Transfer Contrast in Human Cartilage In Vitro". G.A. Morris and A.J. Freemont, Magn.Reson.Med. 28, 97-104 (1992).
• "General Analytical Solutions of the Bloch Equations", G.A. Morris and P.B. Chilvers, J.Magn.Reson. Ser. A 107, 236-238 (1994).
• "Off-resonance binomial composite pulses in 2D and 3D fat/water imaging at 0.5 T, X.P. Zhu, C.E. Hutchinson, P. B. Chilvers, G.A. Morris, J.M. Hawnaur and C.J. Taylor, Brit.J.Radiol. 68, 134-140 (1995).
• "Contrast Modified Gradient Echo Imaging Using a Binomial Rotary Echo Sequence", X.P. Zhu, P.B. Chilvers, C.E. Hutchinson, G.A. Morris, J.M. Hawnaur, J.E. Adams and C.J. Taylor, MAGMA, 5, 193-200 (1997).
• "Effects of Radiation Damping on Z-spectra." D.C. Williamson, J. Närväinen, P.L. Hubbard, R.A. Kauppinen and G.A. Morris, J. Magn. Reson. 183, 215-224 (2006).

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g.a.morris@manchester.ac.uk

Most recent revision 15th April 2007