A means of providing a detailed analysis of the chemicals involved in muscle metabolism and subsequent alterations with disease or drugs would be an important advance. Two examples of this include the effect of the cholesterol-lowering drugs, known as statins, that commonly cause muscle pain or weakness and can progress to rhabdomyolysis and mortality. The second is the relationship between skeletal muscle triglycerides and insulin resistance, obesity and exercise. Magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) can provide such information by reporting on the intramyocellular lipids (IMCL) and extramyocellular lipids (EMCL) in muscle. These two types of lipids reside in different compartments in muscle tissue and thus their protons are shielded differently. Non-invasive quantification of IMCL and EMCL by 1D and 2D 1 H MRS has been reported at 3T . However at 3T there is significant overlap or the resonances in the 1D and crosspeaks in the 2D MR spectra making assignment and definitive correlations with disease difficult. The goal here is to develop 1D and 2D MRS methods at the higher field strength of 7T in order to provide more detailed chemical information than is available at 3
