How does MRS work?

Magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) is performed with a variety of pulse sequences. The simplest sequence consists of a 90 degree RF pulse without any gradients with reception of the signal by the RF coil immediately after the single RF pulse. Many sequences used for imaging can be used for spectroscopy also (such as the spin echo sequence). The important difference between an imaging sequence and a spectroscopy sequence is that for spectroscopy, a read out gradient is not used during the time the RF coil is receiving the signal from the person or object being examined. Instead of using the frequency information (provided by the read out or frequency gradient) to provide spatial or positional information, the frequency information is used to identify different chemical compounds. This is possible because the electron cloud surrounding different chemical compounds shields the resonant atoms of spectroscopic interest to varying degrees depending on the specific compound and the specific position in the compound. This electron shielding causes the observed resonance frequency of the atoms to slightly different and therefore identifiable with MRS.