The National High Magnetic Field Laboratory has brought to field a Series-Connected Hybrid magnet for NMR spectroscopy. As a DC powered magnet it can be operated at fields up to 36.1 T. The series connection between a superconducting outsert and a resistive insert dramatically minimizes the high frequency fluctuations of the magnetic field typically observed in purely resistive magnets. Current-density-grading among various resistive coils was used for improved field homogeneity. The 48 mm magnet bore and 42 mm outer diameter of the probes leaves limited space for conventional shims and consequently a combination of resistive and ferromagnetic shims are used. Field maps corrected for field instabilities were obtained and shimming achieved better than 1 ppm homogeneity over a cylindrical volume of 1 cm diameter and height. The magnetic field is regulated within 0.2 ppm using an external 7Li lock sample doped with paramagnetic MnCl2. The improved field homogeneity and field regulation using a modified AVANCE NEO console enables NMR spectroscopy at 1H frequencies of 1.0, 1.2 and 1.5 GHz. NMR at 1.5 GHz reflects a 50% increase in field strength above the highest superconducting magnets available presently. Three NMR probes have been constructed each equipped with an external lock rf coil for field regulation. Initial NMR results obtained from the SCH magnet using these probes illustrate the very exciting potential of ultra-high magnetic fields.

It is well known and universally accepted that people's ability to use ongoing interaural temporal disparities conveyed via pure tones is limited to frequencies below 1600 Hz. We wished to determine if this limitation is the result of the constant amplitude and periodic axis crossings which characterize pure tones. To this end, we employed an acoustic pointing task in which listeners varied the interaural intensitive difference of a 500-Hz narrow-band noise (the pointer) so that it matched the intracranial position of a second, experimenter-controlled, stimulus (the target). Targets were either pure tones or narrow bands of noise (50 or 100 Hz wide). The narrow bands of noise were delayed interaurally in two distinct manners. We delayed either the entire waveform or only the carrier. In the latter case, the envelopes and phase functions were identical. This resulted in a noise which resembles the pure tone case in that the interaural delay is manifested as a constant phase shift and resembles the ordinary noise in that the envelope and phase are random functions of time. Surprisingly, it appears that all three targets were lateralized virtually identically regardless of frequency or bandwidth. Apparently, the dynamically changing envelopes and phases did not effect the listeners' use of interaural temporal disparities in any discernable fashion.

No abstract

It is well known and universally accepted that people's ability to use ongoing interaural temporal disparities conveyed via pure tones is limited to frequencies below 1600 Hz. We wish to determine if this limitation is the result of the constant amplitude and periodic axis-crossings which characterize pure tones. To this end, an acoustic pointing task was employed in which listeners varied the interaural intensitive difference of a 500-Hz narrow-band noise (the pointer) so that the position of its intracranial image matched that of a second, experimenter-controlled stimulus (the target). Targets were either pure tones or narrow bands of noise (50 or 100 Hz wide). The narrow bands of noise were delayed interaurally in two distinct manners: Either the entire waveform or only the carrier was delayed. In the latter case, the envelopes and phase-functions of the bands of noise were identical interaurally. This resulted in noises which resemble the pure tone case in that the interaural delay is manifested as a constant phase-shift and resemble ordinary noises in that the envelope and phase are random functions of time. Surprisingly, it appears that all three targets were lateralized virtually identically regardless of frequency or bandwidth. Apparently, the dynamically changing envelopes and phases did not affect the listeners' use of interaural temporal disparities in any discernible fashion.

Previous researchers have successfully demonstrated the application of temperature feedback control for thermal treatment of disease using MR thermometry. Using the temperature-dependent proton resonance frequency (PRF) shift, ultrasound heating for hyperthermia to a target organ (such as the prostate) can be tightly controlled. However, using fixed gain controllers, the response of the target to ultrasound heating varies with type, size, location, shape, stage of growth, and proximity to other vulnerable organs. To adjust for clinical variables, feedback self-tuning regulator (STR) and model reference adaptive control (MRAC) methods have been designed and implemented using real-time, online MR thermometry by adjusting the output power to an ultrasound array to quickly reach the hyperthermia target temperatures. The use of fast adaptive controllers in this application is advantageous because adaptive controllers do not require a priori knowledge of the initial tissue properties and blood perfusion and can quickly reach the steady-state target temperature in the presence of dynamic tissue properties (e.g., thermal conductivity, blood perfusion). This research was conducted to rapidly achieve and manage therapeutic temperatures from an ultrasound array using novel MRI-guided adaptive closed-loop controllers both in ex vivo and in vivo experiments. The ex vivo phantom experiments with bovine muscle (n = 5) show that within 6 ± 0.2 minutes, the tissue temperature increased by 8 ± 1.37°C. Using rabbits' (n = 5) thigh muscle, the in vivo experiments demonstrated the target temperature reached 44.5°C ± 1.2°C in 8.0 ± 0.5 minutes. The preliminary in vivo experiment with canine prostate hyperthermia achieved 43 ± 2°C in 6.5 ± 0.5 minutes. These results demonstrate that the adaptive controllers with MR thermometry are able to effectively track the target temperature with dynamic tissue properties.