Hemoglobin magnetism in aqueous solution probed by muon spin relaxation and future applications to brain research.

A marked difference in spin relaxation behavior due to hemoglobin magnetism was found for positive muons (μ(+)) in deoxyhemoglobin in comparison with that observed in oxyhemoglobin in aqueous solution at room temperature under zero and external longitudinal magnetic fields upto 0.4 Tesla. At the same time, small but significant unique relaxation pattern was observed in nonmagnetic oxyhemoglobin.