A hybrid data analysis and mesh refinement paradigm for conformal voxel spectroscopy

Recent advances in magnetic resonance spectroscopy have involved defining a conformal polyhedral shape around the tissue of interest (TOI). Up until now, magnetic resonance spectroscopy involved specifying a cuboid encompassing the volumetric shape of the TOI. The signal obtained from the cuboid includes signal from healthy tissue in addition to TOI, resulting in "contamination" of the total signal with non-TOI signal. Additional, a set of planes known as spatial saturation planes may be prescribed around the TOI so that a larger proportion of TOI to non-TOI signal is obtained. In this paper, we propose and implement an algorithm to optimize spatial saturation plane placement, resulting in greater proportion of signal from the TOI. This involves a better definition of the initial region of excitation using principal component analysis, followed by a mesh-based approach for plane placement.