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Hemoglobin magnetism in aqueous solution probed by muon spin relaxation and future applications to brain research
Kanetada Nagamine1, Koichiro Shimomura, Haruo Miyadera
1Atomic Physics Laboratory, RIKEN, Saitama, Japan . ; Muon Science Laboratory, Institute of Materials Structure Science, KEK, Ibaraki, Japan . ; Physics Department, University of California, Riverside, Riverside, U.S.A .
Abstract:
A marked difference in spin relaxation behavior due to hemoglobin magnetism was found for positive muons (μ(+)) in deoxyhemoglobin in comparison with that observed in oxyhemoglobin in aqueous solution at room temperature under zero and external longitudinal magnetic fields upto 0.4 Tesla. At the same time, small but significant unique relaxation pattern was observed in nonmagnetic oxyhemoglobin. Combined with our previous measurements on hemoglobin in human blood, application of this type of measurement to the studies of the level of oxygenation in various regions of the human brain is suggested.
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