Dear BCM 230,

In the next lecture we will do an in-depth treatment of NMR imaging, building on the foundation given in the last lecture. Please review pages 95-97, and then read pages 98-110 before the next lecture.

 

Now some summary of the previous lecture:

1) How does one start out in drawing the lines connecting peaks in a COSY map?

There is no one correct answer! Start with any peak you like & you will still get the same result. The easiest way is to start with a resolved peak or at one end of the molecule (if you know it) but that isn't essential. I would recommend just getting a ruler and trying the 2-bromobutane and sucrose COSY spectra in the class notes. Connections of cross peaks for both of these COSY spectra are shown in the week 7 animations posted on the website. Remember to draw lines parallel to the axes when connecting the cross peaks and diagonal peaks. See me if you have difficulties. Remember that COSY spectra are symmetric, i.e. they have identical information on either side of the diagonal and so you can use either or both sides of the COSY map for drawing your lines.

 

2) The advantages of 2D NMR relative to 1D NMR are greater resolution of spectra and the greater amount of information obtained. Also, 2D spectra use only non-selective pulses. For example, in a crowded, poorly resolved spectrum it is much easier to do a COSY with non-selective pulses than attempt to do a selective decoupling experiment to reveal scalar interactions.

 

3) The major disadvantage of 2D NMR relative to 1D NMR is the vastly greater amount of spectrometer time required by the former. A typical real 2D NMR experiment might have 200 (or more) t1 increments, i.e. 200 separate FIDs would have to be collected. This would take 200 times as long as a comparable 1D experiment! Thus 2D experiments for dilute samples take many hours.

 

4) Now a closing thought from a past student:

"What you get out of an NMR experiment depends upon the pulse sequence!"

This student realized that what specific kind of NMR data we obtain from the host of possibilities - chemical shifts, decouplings, relaxation time measurements, NOEs, various kinds of 2D NMR, or NMR image data - depends on the specific type of pulse sequence used to manipulate the nuclear spin system.