Advanced time-domain quantitation methods for MR spectroscopy and metabolite imaging

In this paper an overview is given of time-domain quantitation methods for medical MR spectroscopy and metabolite imaging. Two classes of methods are discussed: (1) black-box methods which are fast and can be fully automated but can not exploit prior knowledge, and (2) interactive nonlinear least-squares (NLLS) fitting methods which can highly improve parameter accuracy by imposition of prior knowledge but require a lot of interaction from the user. It is shown how to combine the ease-of-use and efficiency of the black-box methods with the improved accuracy of NLLS fitting.