A Priori Knowledge Based Frequency–Domain Quantification of Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy

Abstract

Because of the overlapping of the spectra of different metabolites and the interference of the baseline mainly from broad resonances of macromolecule and lipids, it is difficult to achieve the quantification of spectra of different metabolites which is important for both research and clinical applications of Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (MRS). In this paper, a novel MRS quantification method based on frequency a priori knowledge is proposed. Firstly, a wavelet filter is used to remove the broad components of an observed spectrum in which baseline and the relatively broad components of metabolite spectrum are included. Secondly, a linear nonnegative pursuit algorithm based on regularized FOCUSS (Focal Underdetermined System Solver) algorithm is used to decompose the filtered spectra in a dictionary which is based on a set of Lorentzian and Gaussian functions corresponding to spectrum models. Benefitting from the a priori knowledge of the peak frequency of each metabolite, the filtered metabolite spectrum can be sparsely represented with these basis functions and the spectra of different metabolites are relevant to certain basis functions. Therefore, with the corresponding relation between the basis functions and spectrum models and the estimated decomposition coefficients, a mixed spectrum without baseline can be reconstructed and spectra of different metabolites can be quantified at the same time. The accuracy and the robustness of MRS quantification are improved by the proposed method, from simulation data, compared with commonly used MRS quantification methods. Quantification on in vivo brain spectra is also demonstrated.