Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy Studies of Human Metabolism

摘要

Magnetic resonance spectroscopy (mrs) is a companion technique to the more familiar magnetic resonance imaging (mri) scan. Whereas mri determines the spatial distribution of water (and lipid) protons across a region of interest, mrs measures the chemical content of mr-visible nuclei, which include the metabolically relevant elements of hydrogen (~1h), carbon (~(13)c), and phosphorus (~(31)p). Mrs is particularly advantageous for assessing metabolism because the chemical properties and environment of each nucleus determine the frequency at which it appears in the mr spectrum, giving rise to peaks corresponding not only to specific metabolites but also to the constituent nuclei of each metabolite (fig. 1).