J Magn Reson. 2010 May;204(1):118-23 doi: 10.1016/j.jmr.2010.02.010. 2010 Feb 19.

Understanding NMR T(2) spectral uncertainty

Prange M, Song YQ.

Abstract

NMR relaxation and diffusion data analysis commonly uses a wide range of methods from simple exponential fitting to Laplace inversions. The pros and cons of these methods are often the subject of intense debate. We show that the ill-conditioned nature of such analysis gives rise to a range of solutions for every method resulting in uncertainty in the spectral solution. Such uncertainty is in fact characteristic of the inversion method. We show a simple method of sparse spectral representation can be used to improve the statistics of multiple-exponential-based inversion schemes.

PMID: 20223689