In Vivo Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy - Example

Example

Shown below is an MRI brain scan (in the axial plane, that is slicing from front-to-back and side-to-side through the head) showing a brain tumour (meningioma) at the bottom right. The red box shows the volume of interest from which chemical information was obtained by MRS (a cube with 2 cm sides which produces a square when intersecting the 5 mm thick slice of the MRI scan).

Each biochemical, or metabolite, has a different peak in the spectrum which appears at a known frequency. The peaks corresponding to the amino acid alanine, are highlighted in red (at 1.4 p.p.m). This is an example of the kind of biochemical information which can help doctors to make their diagnosis. Other metabolites of note are choline (3.2 p.p.m.) and creatine (3.0 p.p.m.).

Both of the above images are kindly provided by The University of Hull Centre for Magnetic Resonance Investigations (http://www.hull.ac.uk/mri).

Read more about this topic:  In Vivo Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy

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