Basic Principles on NMR

and its Applications on

MRI & Spectroscopy
Dr. Stilianos J. Kouridakis
Telecommunication Systems and
Applications Lab.
Department of Electronics Engineer
School of Applied Sciences – ΤΕΙ of Crete
Romanou 3 – Chalepa 73133 Chania
Email: [email protected] ;
[email protected]
 Part I

Nuclear Magnetic Resonance

(NMR)

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 The principle of NMR

The following analysis is focused to

hydrogen nucleus, the proton.

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 What are the basic properties of
proton for NMR?
• A proton turns around itself, so it has its intrinsic
angular momentum. We call it spin

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 Why proton looks like a magnetic
dipole?

• The positively electric charged proton, after its

spin, is equivalent to a very small current loop.
• That current loop creates a small magnetic
dipole and has a magnetic moment μ.

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Approximations of Proton spin and
its magnetic moment

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In quantum mechanics we take for μ:

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 What happens when a proton is
placed in a static magnetic field B?

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• When a proton is placed in a static magnetic field
B, spins (rotates) about its own axis and precesses
about the direction of B. The precessing frequency
f0 is proportional to the magnetic field B:
f0 = γ*Β
• f0 is called “the Larmor frequency”,
• γ* is called “the gyromagnetic ratio”.
For H2 protons γ* = 42,58 MHz / T
NOTICE
spin never aligns to B.
Spin only precesses about the direction of B.
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 For H2 protons, magnetic moment has one of two
components (states) on direction z of magnetic
field B.
• A parallel to it (μz) or
• an antiparallel (-μz) (opposite direction).

• More spins tend to precess about the magnetic

field B, with their z component (μz) to be parallel
(same direction) with the field B.
• Spins parallel to B have lower energy than spins
antiparallel to B.
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 Macroscopic view of magnetization.
Net Magnetization Mz

• When hydrogen atoms are placed in a static

magnetic field B, a slightly larger fraction of
spins aligns parallel to this field B.
• Summation of individual magnetic moment
vectors represent the Longitudinal
magnetization Mz in the z-direction.

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Macroscopic view of magnetization.
Net Magnetization Mz
• Energy difference between spin orientations
(parallel and antiparallel) depends on the
strength of the external magnetic field.
• Spins parallel to B are directly proportional to
it.
• Longitudinal Magnetization Mz increases with
the field strength.

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 Building up of net magnetization,
the Longitudinal Magnetization Mz.

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Net Magnetization depends on B as well as on
temperature T

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 The interaction of Mz and RF pulse
When protons are excited by an RF pulse of
magnetic field B1, perpendicular to B and having
the Larmor frequency f0 then NMR happens and:
• Longitudinal magnetization Mz precesses with f0
and flips gradually to the transverse xy plane
building the transverse magnetization Mxy.
• Actually, a phase coherent movement of spins is
imposed during RF pulse, so Mxy magnetization is
developed gradually.
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RF pulse excitation and Mz
rotation to Mxy plane

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 1)Uncoherent spins give Mxy=0 (upper)
2)Coherent spins after 90o RF pulse give Mxy>0

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 The interaction of Mz and RF pulse
After Mxy is built, RF excitation pulse - called
900 pulse - stops. Then:
• Transverse Magnetization Mxy continuous
precessing with f0 and slowly flips out to its
original direction, Mz.
• With a coil placed axially to x or y axis a voltage
(signal) is induced in f0 which is exponentially
reduced with time constant T2.
• This is called FID (Free Induction Decay) signal.
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Excitation of Mz with 900 RF pulse (left)
and FID signal with pick up coil (right)

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The interaction of Mz and RF pulse

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 FID signal
T2 is the transverse or spin-spin relaxation time

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 After 900 pulse:
Recovery of Longitudinal Mz and decay of Mxy

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 Longitudinal or Spin-Lattice
Relaxation Time T1
• Longitudinal or Spin-Lattice Relaxation Time T1 is
the time for Mz magnetization to recover to 63%
of its magnitude M0 after relaxing on z axis
• Mz increases exponentially with time constant T1
• T1 is greater than T2

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Transverse or spin – spin relaxation
time T2
• Transverse or spin – spin relaxation time T2
represents the decay time constant of
transverse magnetization Mxy, to reach 37%
of its maximum magnitude, after 900 RF pulse
• Mxy decays exponentially with time
• T2 represents the duration of dephasing of μxy
vectors from individual spins

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 Bloch Equation
• Bloch equation describes the magnetization
attributes of a nuclei magnetization vector M

dM
dt
 
       x   M y j / T2*  M z  M o  k / T1

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 Bloch Equation
• Magnetic coordinates after RF excitation are
given:

dM x / dt     y Bo  M x / T 2
*

dM y / dt     x Bo  M y / T2*

dM z / dt  M z  M o  / T1

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 Bloch Equation
• Their solutions are given by next equations
t
M y (t )  e T2*
M o
x sin  t  M coso t
o
y 
t
M x (t )  e T2*
M o
x cos t  M sin 0 t
o
y 
M z (t )  M zo exp t T1   M o 1  exp t T1 

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 Part II

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)

Techniques

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 How an image is achieved
• MRI scanner or MRI tomographer is an
imaging system of human body.
• It is based on NMR of Hydrogen atoms
(protons) in human body, after excitation of
chosen areas (slices) with RF pulses.
• FID signals are received by suitable coils and
after amplification and decoded they translate
the magnitude of FID to contrast for every
point of scanning area.
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 How an image is achieved
• Slice selection of an image is achieved by a
gradient magnetic field Gz, linearly changed
on z direction
• Voxel selection on every point of slice is
achieved by two gradient magnetic fields Gx
and Gy, called the frequency and phase
encoding gradients.

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Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) –
proton density imaging example

Frequency encoding

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 Image contrast

• Contrast is the difference in brightness

between the light and dark areas of a picture.
For MRI imaging, tissues with high signal are
bright on the image and tissues with low
signal are dark. Tissues with intermediate
signal are gray.

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 Image contrast

• Tissues with a large transverse component of

magnetisation give a large signal amplitude.
• Tissues with a small transverse component of
magnetisation give a low signal amplitude.

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MRI of head and dependence of
contrast on NMR signal

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 Image contrast
• Different kinds of tissues on human body have
different T1 and T2 relaxation times, therefore
image contrast is obtained through three
mechanisms in MRI:
• T1 recovery,
• T2 decay and
• proton density.
The image contrast depends on how we
control these three parameters.
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 Image contrast

The corresponding MRI imaging is:

• T1 weighted imaging
• T2 weighted imaging
• Proton Density weighted imaging

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T1 weighted imaging for two different tissues
(fat and cerebrospinal fluid CSF)

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T1 for some brain tissues
BRAIN tissues T1 (ms) 1.5 T
Gray matter 921
White matter 787
Tumours 1073
Meningioma 979
Glioma 959
Oedema 1090

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T1 weighted image (slice) of a head. Fat is
bright, CSF is dark because of different T1

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 T1 weighted imaging
• Short TR → strong T1 weighting
Long TR → low T1 weighting
• For T1 weighting we should choose a short TR.
• Tissues with a short T1 appear bright
• Tissues with a long T1 appear dark
• A typical T1-weighted spin echo (SE) sequence
is acquired with a TR/TE of 400/15 msec

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T2 weighted imaging for two different tissues
(fat and cerebrospinal fluid CSF)

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T2 for some brain tissues

BRAIN tissues T2 (ms) 1.5 T

Gray matter 101
White matter 92
Tumours 121
Meningioma 103
Glioma 111
Oedema 113

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T2 weighted image (slice) of a head. Fat is dark,
CSF is bright because of different T2

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 T2 weighted imaging
• Short TE → low T2 weighting
• Long TE → strong T2 weighting
• Tissues with a short T2 appear dark on T2-
weighted images.
• Tissues with a long T2 appear bright on T2-
weighted images.
• A T2-weighted fast spin echo (FSE) MR image
can be acquired with a TR/TE of 3000/100 msec

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 Proton Density weighted imaging
• The image contrast in PD images is not
dependent on T1 or T2 relaxation. The signal
we receive is completely dependent on the
amount of protons in the tissue
• Short TE → diminish T2 weighting.
• Long TR → diminish T1 weighting
• A typical PD weighted spin echo (SE) sequence
is acquired with a TR/TE of 2500/15 msec.

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Proton Density weighted image (slice) of a head.
Fat and CSF are grey because of different PD’s

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Pulse sequences for NMR-MRI
Partial Saturation recovery sequence
I  ()(1  e TR / T1 )

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Inversion Recovery Sequence
I  ()(1  2e TI / T1  e TR / T1 )

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spin – echo sequence and multiple spin – echo
sequence
 
I  () 1  2e  (TR TI ) / T1  e TR / T1 e TE / T2

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multiple spin – echo sequence

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 Imaging Techniques
Spin echo imaging for T1, T2, PD weighted images

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Spin echo Inversion recovery imaging

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Multislice spin echo Imaging

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Some MRI images examples

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MRI neck coronal STIR (Short Time
Inversion Recovery) image

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MRI Hips Coronal T1 Image

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MRI spine sagittal T1 image

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MRI head axial T2 weighted spin echo

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MRI hand coronal T1 image

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MRI knee sagittal T1 image

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Knee T1 spin echo sagittal MRI

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Knee T1 FLASH WE sagittal

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Spine T1 TSE sagittal MRI

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Head T2 TSE sagittal MRI (1)

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Head T1 FLASH sagittal MRI (2)

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Magnetic tomographer (scanner)

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Magnet and gradient coils

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Types of exciting – receiving coils

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The transmitter

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The receiver

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 Spectroscopy
• Chemical shift is the variation in resonant frequency of a
particular nucleus. It is caused by slight non uniformity in
the local magnetic field ought to:
i. electronic shielding
ii. nucleus coupling
iii. interconnection between atoms in a molecule
iv. the surrounding molecular structure.
• NMR spectroscopy is a powerful tool to investigate and
extract detailed molecular information
• It is used to investigate foods, alcoholic drinks, on
chemistry, on biology, on genetics, on petroleum research
and many other applications.

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Proton chemical shifts of some
simple molecules and groups

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 Some spectroscopy examples
Scotch and scotch liqueur spectrums

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Ethanol solution spectrum

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Alcoholic drinks spectrum

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Gasoline spectroscopy

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 Conclusions

• NMR is an important property of nucleus to

help us on modern science of medicine,
physics, chemistry, food technology,
petroleum industry and on NDT.

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