MR Spectroscopy (MRS) is an evolving biochemical diagnostic modality with which intracellular and extracellular metabolite levels in human tissues in vivo can be recorded non-invasively. Seven years ago, the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) approved the implementation of the MRS protocol (PROBE) on a clinical MRI scanner and the brain MRS procedures in addition to the conventional MRI protocols are routinely reimbursed nowadays. MR spectral data are transferred to offline workstations for further post-processing. Different MRI vendors supply only the basic MRS post-processing packages that are system specific. Hence, there is a need for a unified post-processing software package that can process the raw data acquired from various neuropathological MRS examinations. We propose to develop a new software package, one version for a Silicon Graphics Workstation and another for a Sun Sparcstation, both of them UNIX based. In Phase I, a new MRS software package will be implemented on a Sun Ultrasparc10 workstation and the package will include algorithms to process one-dimensional and multi-dimensional MR spectroscopic dataset. MR spectra acquired from phantom experiments will be used fro testing and optimization. In Phase II, a global package will be developed for both SGI and Sun workstations. We propose to analyze the spectra of thirty bipolar patients and thirty bipolar patients and thirty age/sex-matched healthy controls using the proposed software package.
Analysis of data from clinical trials.
