T1-Rho Dispersion in Human OA Cartilage Specimens using HRMAS Spectroscopy at 11.7T

Keerthi Shet¹, Hikari Yoshihara, Joe Schooler, John Kurhanewicz, Michael Ries, Xiaojuan Li

HRMAS NMR spectroscopy was used to quantify T1-rho and T2 relaxation times and examine the T1-rho dispersion characteristics of human OA cartilage specimens. T2 of water in cartilage showed a bi-exponential decay, with the shorter component significantly higher in OA cartilage. A mono-exponential decay was a better fit to T1-rho of control cartilage as against a bi-exponential decay for OA-cartilage. The longer T1-rho component of OA cartilage was found to be significantly higher than the T1-rho of healthy cartilage which can be attributed to proteoglycan degeneration in OA cartilage.