NMR microscopy of tissue in organic and mixed solvents

Abstract

We propose to use organic and mixed solvents for nuclear magnetic resonance microscopy of fixed tissue as a means for improving image information content. NMR properties of some standard solvents (methanol, acetone, DMSO) and solvents in use for tissue processing in pathology (xylenes, paraffin, ‘Clearify’) have been measured, reviewed, and analyzed. It was found that DMSO and paraffin are very useful solvents that provide images of better quality than those obtained in water (neutralized formalin buffer). This is illustrated on the formalin fixed mouse brain sections imaged at 16.4 teslas (700 MHz).

Keywords

• NMR
• MRI
• MRM
• nuclear magnetic resonance
• NMR imaging
• NMR microscopy
• magnetization transfer
• cross-relaxation