About the Authors

Mitsue Miyazaki

mmiyazaki@tmriusa.com

Affiliation MR Research, Toshiba Medical Research Institute, Vernon Hills, Illinois, United States of America

Cheng Ouyang

Affiliation MR Research, Toshiba Medical Research Institute, Vernon Hills, Illinois, United States of America

Xiangzhi Zhou

Affiliation MR Research, Toshiba Medical Research Institute, Vernon Hills, Illinois, United States of America

James B. Murdoch

Affiliation MR Research, Toshiba Medical Research Institute, Vernon Hills, Illinois, United States of America

Yasutaka Fushimi

Affiliation Department of Diagnostic Imaging and Nuclear Medicine, Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan

Tomohisa Okada

Affiliation Department of Diagnostic Imaging and Nuclear Medicine, Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan

Koji Fujimoto

Affiliation Department of Diagnostic Imaging and Nuclear Medicine, Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan

Aki Kido

Affiliation Department of Diagnostic Imaging and Nuclear Medicine, Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan

Yoshiki Arakawa

Affiliation Department of Neurosurgery, Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan

Susumu Miyamoto

Affiliation Department of Neurosurgery, Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan

Kaori Togashi

Affiliation Department of Diagnostic Imaging and Nuclear Medicine, Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan

Competing Interests

Four authors (MM, CO, XZ, and JM) are employees of Toshiba Medical Research Institute USA, Inc. (TMRU), which is the affiliated company of Toshiba Medical Systems Corporation (TMSC), Japan whose company funded this study. NS from TMSC has helped data collection. The authors have patent applications (by MM, CO and XZ on USA13/601,723 “AUTOMATED MRI DETECTION OF TISSUE MACROMOLECULAR T2/T2* CHARACTERISTICS USING Z-SPECTRA”; Aug, 31, 2012, 13/705,582 “AUTOMATED MRI DETECTION OF TISSUE MACROMOLECULAR T2/T2* CHARACTERISTICS USING Z-SPECTRA”; Dec. 5, 2012, and 14/470137 “MAGNETIC RESONANCE IMAGING APPARATUS”; Aug. 27, 2014) for the ZAPPED technique which are still pending. There are no further patents, products in development or marketed products to declare. This does not alter the authors' adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: MM CO XZ YF TO. Performed the experiments: MM CO XZ YF TO KF AK YA SM KT. Analyzed the data: MM CO XZ YF TO KF AK YA SM KT. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: MM CO XZ JM. Wrote the paper: MM CO XZ JM YF TO.