Overview
Medical spectroscopy is the application of spectroscopic techniques, which measure how matter interacts with electromagnetic radiation, to study tissues and metabolites for diagnosis, monitoring, and research in medicine. By detecting characteristic signals from molecules, these methods provide chemical and metabolic information non-invasively, complementing structural imaging. Magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) is a prominent example, exploiting the same physical principles as magnetic resonance imaging to quantify metabolites in the brain and other tissues, and is used to investigate conditions such as stroke, seizure disorders, neurodegenerative disease, and tumors. By revealing metabolic changes that may precede visible structural alterations, medical spectroscopy supports earlier detection and more precise characterization of disease, including in oncology and molecular imaging. Key aspects include the physics of resonance and signal acquisition, metabolite quantification, in vivo proton spectroscopy, and integration with anatomical imaging. Related open-access research, including work on magnetic resonance biospectroscopy in metabolic and molecular imaging of cancer, is available within the journal.