This was already answered in the other post. The heatmap values are not interpretable in general (the exception is log transformation, which is relatively simple). In your case - quantile normalization followed by autoscaling, which will be very difficult to give explanation - as both methods use some global summary statistics.
But how the values are calculated? It is exactly as you described - quantile normalization followed by autoscaling for features (i.e. z-scores for each feature). You can see the R commands (in “R Command History”) and the source code (in the MetaboAnalystR package). If you still would like to know more
- Read our comments on quantile normlization
- MetaboAnalystR uses pheatmap for heatmap visualization. The autoscale feature means the “scale” Option is set to “row” (default).