Described herein are systems and methods of identifying bipolar disorder in a person. One such method includes acquiring 31P spectroscopic imaging data from a region of interest in a brain of the person and subsequently analyzing the 31P spectroscopic imaging data to obtain a signal intensity and a concentration for one or more phosphorus metabolites. A reduced concentration the one or more phosphorus metabolites, such as inorganic phosphate, in the brain can indicate bipolar disorder in the person. Frontal lobe inorganic phosphate concentration in medication-free adolescents can indicate bipolar depression.
Brain phosphorus spectroscopy in bipolar disorder