Cortical Bone Water Studied with 1H and 2H Double-Quantum Filtered NMR

Henry H. Ong¹, Felix W. Wehrli¹

NMR and MRI are powerful tools for non-destructive study of bone water, which can provide insight into bone micro- and nanostructure. However, the MR signal of bone is comprised of several proton populations including collagen, collagen-associated water, and water within the Haversian and lacuno-canalicular system. Double-quantum filtered (DQF) NMR may be useful for characterizing the collagen-associated water contribution to the overall MR signal. Here, we studied lamb tibia cortical bone with ¹H and ²H in-phase DQF-NMR and report dipolar and quadrupolar splittings from bone, which we attribute to collagen backbone and collagen-associated water protons, respectively.