Proton spin-lattice relaxation time study in tissues of the adult newt Taricha granulosa (Amphibia: Urodele).

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) pulse techniques were used to obtain values for the spin-lattice relaxation time (T1) of whole blood, plasma, blood cells, in vitro liver samples, and live and necrotic tail samples for adult Taricha granulosa. The T1 for whole blood is (0.80 +/- 0.01) s, for plasma (0.76 +/- 0.02) s and for blood cells (0.83 +/- 0.01) s, and did not change over several hours of measurement. The necrotic liver gave a single T1 of (0.28 +/- 0.02) s within the first 20 min of excision with a gradual increase over the next 3.5 h. Live and dead tail samples gave two T1 values: a short T1 of about 0.15 s remaining essentially constant and a long T1 starting at 0.68 s and increasing to 0.9 s during the 5 h of the experiment.