Aqueous solutions of a series of monodisperse poly(N-isopropylacrylamide)s end-labeled with n-butyl-1-pyrene at one or both chain ends (Py-n-PNIPAMs with n=1 or 2) were studied by turbidimetry, light scattering, and fluorescence. For a given polymer concentration and heating rate, the cloud point (T-c) of an aqueous Py-n-PNIPAM solution, determined by turbidimetry, was found to increase with the number-average molecular weight (M-n) of the polymer. The steady-state fluorescence spectra and time-resolved fluorescence decays of Py-n-PNIPAM aqueous solutions were analyzed and all parameters retrieved from these analyses were found to be affected as the solution temperature passed through T-c, the solution cloud point, and T-m, the temperature where dehydration of PNIPAM occurred. The trends obtained by fluorescence to characterize the aqueous Py-n-PNIPAM solutions as a function of temperature were found to be consistent with the model proposed for telechelic PNIPAM by Koga et al. in 2006. (c) 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part B: Polym. Phys. 2018, 56, 308-318