NMR in biomedicine
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The dependence of apparent diffusion coefficients (ADCs) of molecules in biological tissues on an acquisition-specific timescale is a powerful mechanism for studying tissue microstructure. Unlike water, metabolites are confined mainly to intracellular compartments, thus providing higher specificity to tissue microstructure. Compartment-specific structural and chemical properties may also affect molecule transverse relaxation times (T₂). ⋯ Metabolite data showed an increase of creatine (p < 0.05) and N-acetylaspartate (p < 0.05) ADCs with TE at Δ = 44 ms, and a decrease of creatine (p < 0.05) and N-acetylaspartate (p = 0.1) ADCs with TE at Δ = 246 ms. No dependence of choline ADC on TE was observed. The metabolite results suggest that diffusion and relaxation properties are dictated not only by metabolite distribution in different cell types, but also by other mechanisms, such as interactions with membranes, exchange between "free" and "bound" states or interactions with microsusceptibility gradients.