RADIAL SPECTROSCOPIC IMAGING

A family of fast chemical-shift imaging techniques, which takes advant age of the cylindrical symmetry found, for instance, in some plants, i s introduced. Variants with one and two spectral dimensions allow rapi d measurement of the radially dependant spatial distribution of metabo lites in such objects. Compared to conventional chemical-shift imaging and correlation-peak imaging, the minimal experimental duration can b e reduced substantially. The impact on the SNR is discussed. Radial sp ectroscopic H-1 NMR images of metabolites in Ancistrocladus heyneanus, a tropical liana plant, are shown, using both radial chemical-shift i maging and radial correlation-peak imaging. The spatial distribution o f various metabolites in this plant have been measured. The reduction of experimental duration compared to the conventional techniques was b y a factor of 63 and 31, respectively. (C) 1997 Academic Press.