Premium
Magnetization Transfer and T 2 Relaxation Components in Tissue
Author(s) -
Harrison Rodney,
Bronskill Michael J.,
Mark Henkelman R.
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
magnetic resonance in medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.696
H-Index - 225
eISSN - 1522-2594
pISSN - 0740-3194
DOI - 10.1002/mrm.1910330406
Subject(s) - magnetization transfer , relaxation (psychology) , contrast (vision) , nuclear magnetic resonance , white matter , magnetization , image contrast , relaxometry , magnetic resonance imaging , brain tissue , magnetic relaxation , chemistry , materials science , physics , anatomy , magnetic field , spin echo , biology , optics , neuroscience , medicine , radiology , quantum mechanics
T 2 relaxation makes an important contribution to tissue contrast in magnetic resonance (MR) imaging. Many tissues are known to exhibit multicomponent T 2 relaxation that suggests some compartmental segregation of mobile protons on a T 2 timescale. Magnetization transfer (MT) is another relaxation mechanism that can be used to produce tissue contrast in MR imaging. The MT process depends strongly on water‐macromolecular interactions. To investigate the relationship between multicomponent T 2 relaxation and the MT process, multiecho T 2 measurements have been combined with MT measurements for freshly excised samples of cardiac muscle, striated muscle, and white matter. For muscle, short T 2 components show greater MT than long T 2 components, consistent with the belief that they represent distinct water environments. For white matter, quantitative MT measurements were identical for the two major T 2 components, apparently because of exchange between the T 2 compartments on a timescale characteristic of the MT experiment. Implications for accurate modeling of MT in tissue and the use of MT for MR image contrast are discussed.