An NMR assessment of the rheological properties of blood and its constituents: a review

Abstract

This review assesses the progress of NMR in the field of hemorheology, i.e., the assessment of the mechanical and physical characteristics of flowing blood. The review deals with the intrinsic rheological properties of the red cell and its constituents (membrane, cytoplasm), which are dominant in the microcirculation, and a section concerns the investigation of the cell/cell interaction phenomenon, known to give rise to the complicated non-Newtonian behavior of blood under most of the flow conditions encountered in the blood circulation using NMR.