Aqueous and Non-aqueous T1 relaxation in brain under six diverse initial conditions

A consistent view of T₁ relaxation in white matter remains elusive. We use an NMR spectrometer to observe white matter T₁ relaxation behavior in both aqueous and non-aqueous protons following six diverse initial magnetizations. The data is analyzed in the context of both an unrestricted and restricted four pool model. We show how the observed multi-component T₁ relaxation behavior depends sensitively on the initial conditions of the different pools, suggesting that great care must be taken in interpreting T₁ relaxation measurements.