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Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (MRS)Proton Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (MRS) of the brain can be seen as a non-invasive biopsy, or sampling, of tissue metabolites. This procedure is virtually identical to a standard MRI scan. Both techniques use a magnetic field instead of radiation. The patient is placed supine on the MRI scanner and a special coil, or brace, is placed around the patient’s head, and the exam is performed. The difference between MRS and MRI is that with MRI the magnetic field is utilized to create images; with MRS the same magnetic field is used to create a graph. This graph consists of various peaks, each of which represent a specific metabolite present in the brain. The presence or absence, or increase or decrease in that peak, indicate or give insite into various processes occurring in the brain.Common uses of MRS include detection of Alzheimer’s disease; stroke versus tumor; recurrent or residual tumor following therapy versus successfully treated tumor; infection or abscess, and many others. It is important to understand that MRS does not diagnose a given condition; rather, it is additional and very useful data to aide in diagnosis, and it must be interpreted with both clinical history as well as other imaging studies (CT, MRI, etc.).  
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