133Cs relaxation times in rat tissues.

133Cs relaxation-time studies of tissues from rats into which cesium has been incorporated by dietary loading have been carried out in vivo and in vitro. Whereas tissue T1 values are on the order of seconds, T2 values are as low as a few tens of milliseconds. 133Cs tissue relaxation times are analogous to those of 39K in the same tissues, but are more readily measured because of the greater sensitivity of 133Cs compared with 39K. T1 and T2 data of excised tissue at two resonance frequencies (65.60 and 39.37 MHz) and temperatures (302 and 278K) have been analyzed in terms of a general description of spin-7/2 relaxation. The results are consistent with most of the cesium ions being in a free state, undergoing fast exchange with bound ions having long correlation times located in one or more intracellular compartments.