Keywords: Neuro: Brain, Contrast mechanisms: Diffusion, Contrast mechanisms: Spectroscopy
Unlike water, some brain metabolites are intracellular and disproportionately concentrated in glia (compared to neurons). Diffusion magnetic resonance spectroscopy (dMRS) allows to measure diffusion properties of metabolites, and therefore provides sensitivity to some morphological features of the compartments/cell-types they diffuse in. For example, diffusion properties of metabolites more importantly concentrated in astrocytes reflect the hypertrophy that reactive astrocytes exhibit. More generally, changes in diffusion properties of “glial markers” often correlate with neuroinflammation. This presentation will introduce the principles of dMRS and show its specific advantages (and challenges) for detecting neuroinflammation.