Biological Psychiatry Workshop
May 11, 2000
Chicago, IL

Nuts and Bolts  Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy:
A Guide to Quantitative Measurement of Cerebral Neurochemistry

Chair: Gregory J. Moore
Co-Chair: Perry F. Renshaw
Stephen R. Dager
Kelvin O. Lim

Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (MRS) has emerged as a powerful tool for in vivo measurement of cerebral neurochemistry.  Recent advances in MRS technology and their subsequent automation have enabled this
technology to become widely available at most medical centers.  The goal of this workshop is to provide a nuts and bolts guide which will enable investigators with new access to MRS technology to acquire, analyze, and quantitate MRS data.  The attendee of the workshop will be guided to through each step of the process necessary to obtain quantitative MRS measurements of cerebral neurochemistry for clinical research investigations.  Topics to be addressed in this workshop include goal oriented pulse sequence and parameter choices, spectral fitting techniques, voxel tissue segmentation, and neurochemical quantitation.  In additional participants will be taught strategies to avoid common MRS pitfalls and to recognize artifacts in their MRS data.  This will be followed by a panelist discussion and subsequent audience question/answer session on the limitations and potential of MRS technology.  Participants will be provided with a brief "nuts andbolts guide" and a list of commercial and public domain software tools available for the analysis of MRS data.

10-15 min Q&A panel

Moore-Analysis Methods and Quantitation
Renshaw-Other Nuclei
Lim-Choice of methodology/echo times/sequences/tips/common pitfalls
Dager-Clinical Considerations for MRS

10-15 min Q&A panel