Biophysics: in vivo MR Imaging & Spectroscopy
MR studies from Cellular to Organismic function
Contact Investigator: Dr. Christian Bock
Comprehensive and comparative studies of adaptational physiology of living organisms require a set of methods that are suitable to bridge molecular, cellular and whole organism approaches. Non-invasive MR technology enables such integrative analyses through non-invasive multiparameter studies from cellular to whole organism levels. These range from spectroscopic analyses of cellular mechanisms of ion, acid-base and metabolic regulation to online measurements of ventilation, cardiocirculatory activity, systemic and microvascular blood flow in the living animal during various functional states.
Anatomical MRI of antactic eelpout
Antarctic eelpout in aquarium tank
Multi-parameter MR studies on Antarctic fishes can be performed non-invasively under well defined physiological conditions on a long term scale up to several days in our MR scanner. The animals are sitting in small aquarium tanks continuously perfused with sea water, where they can freely move around. Usually, polar fishes are quite inactive, special adapted MR techniques can compensate for any movement artefacts by the animal.
MR equipment
MR-Schwimmtunnel inc Ph.D student G. Lurman
Biospec
47/40 Biospec (BRUKER BioSpin GmbH) DBX system operating at 4.7 Tesla with actively shielded gradient coils (50 mT/m, 180 µs rise time, 25.8 cm inner diameter).
The system integrates the following components:
- 2000 Watt 1H-RF-power amplifier, bandwidth 180 to 205 MHz.
- 1000 Watt broadband RF-power amplifier, bandwith 10 to 110 MHz.
- Several 1H-, 31P-, 19F- and 23Na- imaging probes, specially adapted for high conductivity samples.
- Several 1H, 31P and 13C-NMR surface coils with various diameter and purposes
- An active decoupling unit for signal to noise improvement
- A mini imaging unit with actively shielded gradient coils (200 mT/m, 80 µms rise time, 12 cm inner diameter).
- Several 1H-, 19F- and 23Na- imaging probes as part of pos. 6.
- A micro imaging unit with actively shielded gradient coils (1 T/m, 80 µms rise time, 9 cm inner diameter).
- Several 1H-, 31P- imaging probes as part of pos. 8.
400 WB:
Ph.D student Mareike Schröer working with a BRUKER 400 WB spectrometer
AVANCE 400 WB (BRUKER Analytic GmbH) 94/89 UltraShield.
Wide bore (89 mm) Avance system operating at 9.5T, usable for classical NMR spectroscopy (5mm) and max. inner diameter of 30 mm for microscopy studies
The system integrates the following components:
- Probes: BBI-z (5mm), BBI-z (8mm), BB (20mm).
- A microscopy unit (1T/m, 80 µms rise time, 3 cm inner diameter).
- Probes (microscopy): BBo (20mm), BBo (30mm), Solenoid (3mm).
Swimtunnel:
Cod in MRI swimtunnel
A hand-built swim tunnel integrated to our MRI system can be used for online determination of muscle bio-energetics in exercising animals for studies of the effects of changing environmental variables on the life style of marine animals.
