Deuterium nuclear spin relaxation in biological tissues

The deuterium nuclear spin relaxation times have been measured in tissues taken from rats given 20% deuterium oxide in their drinking water. The spin-lattice and spin-spin relaxation times were measured at 13.7 MHz by the inversion-recovery and Carr-Purcell-Meiboom-Gill FT methods, respectively. The reciprocals of the spin-lattice (T1) relaxation times were found to correlate well with those of protons in similar nondeuteriated tissues at a similar frequency (13.6 MHz) measured in a separate study. A least-squares analysis of the data yields (1/T1)H = (0.991)(1/T1)D - 3.48 for five tissues (standard deviations of 0.097 for the slope and 0.383 for the intercept with a correlation coefficient of 0.986). Implications with respect to relaxation mechanisms are discussed.