Jakob Georgi1, Riccardo Metere1, Markus Morawski2, Carsten Jäger2, and Harald E. Möller1
Water diffusivity in biological tissues can be related to the underlying microstructure that modulates the restricted or hindered diffusion, and can be studied with NMR experiments. The extracellular matrix, whose composition depends on the tissue type, may have an influence on diffusion. In this work we study the influence of the extracellular matrix on diffusion, by measuring brain and cartilage samples before and after the enzymatic removal of the extracellular matrix components. The activation energy for the self-diffusion of water seems to be not significantly affected by the treatment for brain tissues.
