Objective: To develop a low-cost pedal ergometer compatible with ultrahigh (7 T) field MR systems to reliably quantify metabolic parameters in human lower leg muscle using phosphorus magnetic resonance spectroscopy.
Materials and methods: We constructed an MR compatible ergometer using commercially available materials and elastic bands that provide resistance to movement. We recruited ten healthy subjects (eight men and two women, mean age ± standard deviation: 32.8 ± 6.0 years, BMI: 24.1 ± 3.9 kg/m2). All subjects were scanned on a 7 T whole-body magnet. Each subject was scanned on two visits and performed a 90 s plantar flexion exercise at 40% maximum voluntary contraction during each scan. During the first visit, each subject performed the exercise twice in order for us to estimate the intra-exam repeatability, and once during the second visit in order to estimate the inter-exam repeatability of the time constant of phosphocreatine recovery kinetics. We assessed the intra and inter-exam reliability in terms of the within-subject coefficient of variation (CV).
Results: We acquired reliable measurements of PCr recovery kinetics with an intra- and inter-exam CV of 7.9% and 5.7%, respectively.
Conclusion: We constructed a low-cost pedal ergometer compatible with ultrahigh (7 T) field MR systems, which allowed us to quantify reliably PCr recovery kinetics in lower leg muscle using 31P-MRS.
Keywords: Exercise; Human skeletal muscle; Magnetic resonance spectroscopy; Phosphorus.