ABSTRACT The distinction between Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and Spectroscopy (MRS) is now becoming outdated in biomedicine. On the one hand, in vivo single-volume MRS has been replaced by Chemical Shift Imaging (CSI) which not only yields chemical information available from spectroscopy, but also anatomical information from imaging. On the other hand, new methods in MRI acquisition and processing have opened up new fields for metabolic imaging, beyond the present limitations of morphological imaging. Data obtained from both MRS (biochemistry) and MRI (anatomy and physiology) could then largely overlap. Among the new methods in MRI processing, Texture Analysis (TA) is one of the most promising. It first appeared fifteen years ago in satellite image analysis, and was later applied to medical imaging, mainly in Computed Tomography (CT) and Ultrasound (US). More recently, it has been applied in MRI with preliminary results bringing together anatomy and metabolism. This review article fast presents the different TA methods available for MRI. After a review of the results so far obtained, new trends are discussed for a wider use of TA methods in metabolic MRI.
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