Diffusion in red blood cell suspensions: Separation of the intracellular and extracellular NMR sodium signal

Abstract

It is shown that the signal of intracellular and extracellular sodium of red blood cells can be separated by a difference in diffusion. Comparison with proton diffusion experiments conducted in parallel showed that this difference was caused by restriction to the cell volume. The measured proton and sodium root mean square displacements agreed well with the cell dimensions. However, this experiment is limited to use in vitro by the required gradient strength.