Automatic frequency and phase alignment of in vivo J-difference-edited MR spectra by frequency domain correlation

OBJECTIVE: J-difference editing is often used to select resonances of compounds with coupled spins in (1)H-MR spectra. Accurate phase and frequency alignment prior to subtracting J-difference-edited MR spectra is important to avoid artefactual contributions to the edited resonance. MATERIALS AND METHODS: In-vivo J-difference-edited MR spectra were aligned by maximizing the normalized scalar product between two spectra (i.e., the correlation over a spectral region). The performance of our correlation method was compared with alignment by spectral registration and by alignment of the highest point in two spectra. The correlation method was tested at different SNR levels and for a broad range of phase and frequency shifts. RESULTS: In-vivo application of the proposed correlation method showed reduced subtraction errors and increased fit reliability in difference spectra as compared with conventional peak alignment. The correlation method and the spectral registration method generally performed equally well. However, better alignment using the correlation method was obtained for spectra with a low SNR (down to ~2) and for relatively large frequency shifts. CONCLUSION: Our correlation method for simultaneously phase and frequency alignment is able to correct both small and large phase and frequency drifts and also performs well at low SNR levels.