Stephan E. Maier1,
Robert V. Mulkern2
1Department
of Radiology, Harvard Medical School, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston,
MA, United States; 2Department of Radiology, Harvard Medical
School, Children's Hospital, Boston, MA, United States
The egg presents a simple but relevant object for exploring biophysical aspects of common tissue contrast parameters like diffusion and transverse relaxation. The biexponential characterization of the white yolk containing latebra diffusion signal decay results in diffusion coefficients and signal fractions that are very similar to those found in brain. White yolk contains spheres with membranes. The size of the spheres observed in white yolk falls in the range of cell sizes typically encountered in tissues. The avian egg latebra, is thus an easily accessible model for tissue water diffusion