Correlations of 31P-containing metabolites in human brain at 3 and 7 Tesla

Numerical Monte Carlo analysis was performed to quantify metabolite-metabolite correlations of spectral origin in 31P MRS spectra acquired from human brain at both 3 and 7 Tesla without any confounding biological correlations. Significant correlations were found for many 31P-containing metabolite pairs. In particular, the 3 and 7 Tesla NAD+-NADH correlations are significantly different because of the field strength difference. These results demonstrate that it is necessary to incorporate metabolite-metabolite correlations originating from spectral overlap into statistical models that correlate MRS measurements with clinical parameters when overlapping 31P signals are of clinical interest.