ABSTRACT
Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy is a powerful noninvasive technique that allows the study of properties of different nuclei such as proton (1H), phosphorus (31P), carbon (13C), fluorine (19F), and so on. It is a diverse research tool widely used by biochemists to investigate pathophysiological processes in vitro and by physicians to determine disease abnormalities in vivo. NMR was first described and measured in molecular beams by Isidor Rabi in 1938. Eight years later, in 1946, Felix Bloch and Edward Mills Purcell refined the technique for use on liquids and solids, for which they shared the Nobel Prize in physics in 1952. The conception of Fourier transform (FT) spectroscopy by Ernst and Anderson (1966) opened a new page in modern NMR spectroscopy and completely revolutionized the field. Whole body magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanners were introduced in the early 1980s and since then multinuclear MR Spectroscopy (MRS) has been investigated in living tissues. During the last three decades 1H MR spectra have been recorded in the range of 64-300 MHz using the superconducting magnets operating at the field strengths of 1.5-7 T.
