Anisotropy of transverse proton spin relaxation in collagen-rich tissues like cartilage and tendon is a well-known phenomenon that manifests itself as the "magic-angle" effect in magnetic resonance images of these tissues. It usually attributed to the non-zero averaging of intra-molecular dipolar interactions in water molecules bound to oriented collagen fibers. One way to manipulate the contributions of these interactions to spin relaxation is by partially replacing the water in the cartilage sample with deuterium oxide. It is known that dipolar interactions in deuterated solutions are weaker, resulting in a decrease in proton relaxation rates.

In this work, the effects of deuteration on the longitudinal and the isotropic and anisotropic contributions to transverse relaxation of water protons in bovine articular cartilage was investigated. The anisotropy of transverse proton spin relaxation in articular cartilage is independent of the degree of deuteration is demonstrated, bringing into question some of the assumptions currently held over the origins of relaxation anisotropy in oriented tissues.