An MR imaging apparatus is disclosed, wherein the MR imaging apparatus includes a plurality of gradient coils positioned about a bore of a magnet, and an RF transceiver system controlled by a pulse module to transmit RF signals to an RF coil assembly. The MR imaging apparatus also includes a controller coupled to the plurality of gradient coils and the RF transceiver system and programmed to obtain MR image signals at different echo times from a subject containing metabolites having known characteristics. The controller is further programmed to reconstruct images of the metabolites in a selected region of interest (ROI) using a probabilistic mathematical expression based on known information regarding an image acquisition process and using a spatial distribution of the metabolites to account for artifacts in the images.