Patent ID: 6681132
Filing Date: 2004-01-20
Classification: G01R,Y10T

Abstract:
A method for measuring the magnetic resonance signal of an intracellular population of predetermined nuclei in a cell-containing sample comprising:(a) applying to the sample a first radio frequency pulse, in a magnetic field, sufficient to cause alignment of the predetermined nuclei within the sample; (b) after a set time interval (TI), applying to the sample a second radio frequency pulse, in a magnetic field, sufficient to cause a measurable signal in the plane transverse to the direction of nuclear alignment in step (a); (c) suppressing the measurable signal in the transverse plane attributable to the extracellular population of predetermined nuclei in the sample; and (d) applying image encoding techniques for acquisition of the measurable signal attributable to the intracellular population of predetermined nuclei in the sample, (e) detecting and analyzing the measurable signal to obtain a weighted image; (f) obtaining an unweighted image of the measurable signal; and (g) comparing the weighted image to the unweighted image of the measurable signal, so as to thereby measure the magnetic resonance signal of the intracellular population of predetermined nuclei in the sample.