Patent ID: 7202665

Claim:
A method for producing an image of a metabolite with a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system, the steps comprising: a) acquiring NMR image signals with the MRI system from a subject containing metabolites having known resonant frequencies under the direction of a pulse sequence having a first echo time (TE); b) repeating step a) under the direction of a pulse sequence having a different echo time (TE); c) reconstructing images from the NMR image signals acquired in step a) and step b); d) calculating the signal produced by one of said metabolites at each image pixel using the reconstructed image signals at each pixel and an equation derived from a model NMR signal; wherein the model NMR signal includes a term for each metabolite that has a single known resonant frequency, and further terms for each of a plurality of known resonant frequencies of another metabolite along with factors that indicate the known relative values of NMR signals at each of said plurality of known resonant frequencies.