Enhancement of magnetization transfer effects by inter-molecular multiple quantum filtered NMR

There are a number of methods that give MRI contrasts based on changes of the water M_z magnetization as a result of magnetization transfer to macromolecules. In the present work we report that a combination of these methods with inter-molecular multiple quantum coherences (iMQC) gives enhanced effects. For the magnetization transfer contrast (MTC) method an effect of (M_z/M₀) becomes (M_z/M₀)^l where l is the rank of the tensors constituting the iMQC. A similar trend was found upon combining iMQC with the Goldman-Shen experiment. It is pointed out that the method is general for all magnetization transfer methods, including the nuclear Overhauser effect.