Improved methods for analyzing MR spectroscopic imaging in order to better understand neurological injury

This thesis describes a method to analyze proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy imaging (MRSI) of multiple sclerosis (MS) patients. Multiple sclerosis is a chronic disease of the central nervous system (CNS). MRSI can non-invasively measure the metabolites in the brains and is helpful in research of progression of MS. Conventional approaches to analyze MRSI data are either using region-of-interest (ROI) methods or averaging the resonance intensities over the whole study area. This thesis documents an approach to use all reliable resonance intensities in MRSI based on multivariate mixed effect statistical models for repeated measurement. We applied the method in a series of studies and demonstrated that the distribution of brain metabolites was different among MS patients in different disease phases. These studies also showed the correlations between the brain metabolites and clinical data such as disease duration and clinical disability