Simple MATLAB and Python scripts for multi-exponential analysis

Magn Reson Chem. 2024 Oct;62(10):698-711. doi: 10.1002/mrc.5453. Epub 2024 May 30.

Abstract

Multi-exponential decay is prevalent in magnetic resonance spectroscopy, relaxation, and imaging. This paper describes simple MATLAB and Python functions and scripts for regularized multi-exponential analysis methods for 1D and 2D data and example test problems and experiments. Regularized least-squares solutions provide production-quality outputs with robust stopping rules in ~5 and ~20 lines of code for 1D and 2D inversions, respectively. The software provides an open-architecture simple solution for transforming exponential decay data to the distribution of their decay lifetimes. Examples from magnetic resonance relaxation of a complex fluid, a Danish North Sea crude oil, and fluid mixtures in porous materials-brine/crude oil mixture in North Sea reservoir chalk-are presented. Developed codes may be incorporated in other software or directly used by other researchers, in magnetic resonance relaxation, diffusion, and imaging or other physical phenomena that require multi-exponential analysis.

Keywords: 1H; NMR; exponential decay; inverse problems; magnetic resonance relaxation; multi‐exponential analysis.