Neurochemical correlations in short echo time proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy

• Published in: NMR in biomedicine Vol. 36; no. 7; pp. e4910 - n/a
• Main Authors: Hong, Sungtak, Shen, Jun
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Wiley Subscription Services, Inc 01.07.2023
• Subjects: Biological effects; Biological products; Brain - diagnostic imaging; Brain - metabolism; Chemical equilibrium; clinical magnetic resonance spectroscopy; Macromolecular Substances - metabolism; Macromolecules; Magnetic resonance spectroscopy; Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy - methods; metabolite correlations; Metabolites; Monte Carlo analysis; partial correlation coefficient; Pearson's correlation coefficient; Proton magnetic resonance; Proton Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy - methods; Protons; Spectra; Spectroscopy; clinical magnetic resonance spectroscopy; Monte Carlo analysis; metabolite correlations; Pearson's correlation coefficient; partial correlation coefficient
• ISSN: 0952-3480; 1099-1492
• DOI: 10.1002/nbm.4910

Neurochemical concentrations determined by magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) have been treated as statistically independent measurements in various clinical MRS studies. However, spectral overlap, independent of any biological effects, could lead to significant correlations between neurochemical concentrations extracted from spectral fitting of MRS data, confounding determination of correlations of biological origin. Short echo time (TE) proton MRS spectra are very crowded because of the comparatively narrow chemical shift dispersion of proton nuclear spins. In this study, the complex neurochemical correlations of spectral origin in short‐TE MRS spectra were quantified. The effects of macromolecules and the background spectral baseline on metabolite–metabolite correlations were also analyzed. Our results demonstrate the importance of factoring in spectral correlations when correlating overlapping metabolite signals in short‐TE spectra with clinical parameters. Monte Carlo analysis was used to quantify the complex neurochemical correlations in short‐TE MRS. Both macromolecules and the background spectral baseline were also found to affect many metabolite‐metabolite correlations significantly. These results highlight the importance of factoring in correlations of spectral origin when correlating short‐TE MRS data with clinical parameters.