In vivo quantitative 1H-MRS of metabolites in the brain using water as internal standard

A method is presented for in vivo quantification of some brain metabolites detected by water suppressed volume selected proton MR-spectroscopy using the unsaturated water signal as internal standard. In vitro as well as studies on 17 healthy volunteers were carried out. The results indicated that the concentration of N-acetyl aspartate, creatine + phosphocreatine, choline containing compounds and inositols could be determined reasonably with this first order approximation.