A brisk walk through the fields of relaxation, saturation, and exchange: From solid state NMR to in-vivo imaging

Novel MRI contrast methods, such as Chemical Exchange Saturation Transfer (CEST), rely on previously developed theory and approaches, often introduced first in solidstate NMR. Understanding or at least connecting the basic principles and original works to the modern-day contrast methods in MRI is instructive. The work brings together concepts in relaxation, saturation, and spin lock experiments in the dynamic (exchanging) systems. The work describes how basic principles and theory are translated and being applied to MRI contrast, including MT and CEST. Finally, we review select papers generalizing concepts of relaxation under periodic RF.