Compartmental study of T(1) and T(2) in rat brain and trigeminal nerve in vivo.

The integrated T(1)-T(2) characteristics of rat brain and trigeminal nerve water were studied in vivo using a rapid method for acquiring a series of images that depend on T(1) and T(2) relaxation times. Gray matter regions showed only one signal component in both the T(1) and T(2) domains. Trigeminal nerve, however, which has been shown previously to exhibit three T(2) components, was found to also exhibit three T(1) components. The correlations between these T(1) and T(2) components were demonstrated by uniquely filtering out each of the three T(2) components using an inversion-recovery preparation, as determined by the component T(1) values. Based on previous works, it is postulated that each of these three signal components is derived from a unique microanatomical region of the nerve. Knowledge of these T(1) components may thus prove valuable in devising novel methods of identifying the presence and quantifying the volume of tissue subtypes such as myelin. Copyright 2002 Wiley-Liss, Inc.