Analytical Methods: Artifacts in the measurement of water distribution in soybeans using MR imaging

Significant artifacts occur from the overlapping signals of the water and lipids in relaxation time-weighted magnetic resonance (MR) images and should be compensated, in order to determine a precise water distribution in the soybean seeds. The chemical shift selective T1-, -, and T2-weighted MR images of water were compared to those with water or lipid suppression in soaked soybean seeds. In the absence of lipid suppression, the chemical shift artifacts were observed in the chemical shift selective T1- and T2-weighted MR images, due to the overlapping signals of the water and lipid protons. However, the MR images with lipid suppression had reduced artifacts. This study demonstrates that an appropriate MR imaging technique provides relatively uniform signal intensity and has importance in the investigation of true water distribution within food systems, such as to correlate a relationship between water distribution using MR imaging and water diffusion using pulsed field gradient (PFG) NMR.