Abstract
In vivo Proton NMR imaging is becoming an increasingly popular tool in diagnostic medicine for its non-invasive nature and for its high resolution (1,2). In most clinical applications the 3-D reconstructed human images are based on local measurements of T1 and T2 proton relaxation times. Increases in these relaxation times in tumors (3) have been attributed to a change in the water concentration at the cytoplasmic and/or extracellular level (4) or to a change in the physical state of water (3,5). Similarly, during the cell cycle the variations in T1, i.e., its shortening during the Gl-S transcription (6), have been correlated with cellular changes in water concentration (7). More importantly, it has been found (7) that prior to mitosis an increase in relaxation times of water protons preceeds by 4 hours the increase in water concentration, suggesting that a change in the physical state of water may preceed cell division.
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