The mapping of a CSI spectral matrix to an anatomical image. It shows the regional changes in metabolites as superimposed contours.

(CSI) Chemical shift imaging is an extension of MR spectroscopy, allowing metabolite information to be measured in an extended region and to add the chemical analysis of body tissues to the potential clinical utility of Magnetic Resonance. The spatial location is phase encoded and a spectrum is recorded at each phase encoding step to allow the spectra acquisition in a number of volumes covering the whole sample. CSI provides mapping of chemical shifts, analog to individual spectral lines or groups of lines.
Spatial resolution can be in one, two or three dimensions, but with long acquisition times od full 3D CSI. Commonly a slice-selected 2D acquisition is used. The chemical composition of each voxel is represented by spectra, or as an image in which the signal intensity depends on the concentration of an individual metabolite. Alternatively frequency-selective pulses excite only a single spectral component.
There are several methods of performing chemical shift imaging, e.g. the inversion recovery method, chemical shift selective imaging sequence, chemical shift insensitive slice selective RF pulse, the saturation method, spatial and chemical shift encoded excitation and quantitative chemical shift imaging.

See also Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy.

Echo offset is the time setting of spin echo and gradient echo to be not coincident and to generate phase differences between different spectral line signals (e.g., water and fat). The echo offset is the product of the frequency line difference and the time difference (TD) in the echo times and is equal to the magnitude of the result of the phase difference between two spectral lines. Phases may not change linearly with echo offset time in the presence of a large field inhomogeneity. An echo offset excitation pulse sequence can be used in the magnetic field mapping method, to generate maps from which the standard deviation of the phase difference can be calculated.