High-resolution MR imaging and spectroscopic imaging were used to study differences in proton spectra between cortical gray matter and subcortical white matter in 23 normal volunteers using a 1.5 T scanner and surface coil receivers. A point-resolved spectroscopy (PRESS) volume with an 8 x 8 x 8 phase-encoding matrix was used to acquire over 1900 0.09-0.2 cc spectral voxels. The high-resolution (0.7 x 0.7 x 0.8 mm3 or 0.8 x 0.8 x 1 mm3) images were corrected for the surface coil reception profile and segmented into cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and gray and white matter to correlate with the spectra. The data showed that N-acetyl aspartate (NAA) and creatine (Cr) were higher in the gray matter than in the white matter (NAA(g/w) = 1.4+/-0.36, Cr(g/w) = 1.4+/-0.41). Choline was significantly lower in the gray matter of the occipital lobe than in the white matter (0.73+/-0.19), but not significantly different in the other regions. NAA/Cho was found to be significantly higher in the occipital lobe than in the left frontal or vertex regions.