Intracellular and extracellular spaces of normal adult rat brain determined from the proton nuclear magnetic resonance relaxation times.

The nuclear magnetic resonance method was used to investigate the state of water molecules in normal rat brain tissue in vitro. The transverse magnetization decay curve (TMDC) of the fresh brain tissue of adult rats (8- or 10-weeks-old) was biexponential, which could be interpreted in terms of two distinct transverse relaxation times (T2). Several factors that may affect the TMDC are discussed. It was concluded that the fast and slow components of T2 correspond to those of the water molecules of the intracellular and the extracellular spaces of normal rat brain tissue, respectively.