Studying Aging, Dementia, Trauma, Infection, and Developmental Disorders of the Brain with¹H MRS

Longer Repetition Time Proton MR Spectroscopy Shows Increasing Hippocampal and Parahippocampal Metabolite Concentrations with Aging

“…Notably, the metabolites undergoing the largest and most significant increases with age were creatine, choline, and mI, with the largest relative change was in mI, which is found almost exclusively in glia . Since creatine and choline are found in all cell types, an observed increase in these metabolites combined with an increase in mI is usually interpreted as an increase in glial activation or cell density . A possible mechanism for our observations may be increased microglial cell activation, a process widely reported in neurodegenerative diseases, where glial cells increase in size and activity as part of an immune response to neurodegenerative stress to the CNS .…”

“…12,33 Since creatine and choline are found in all cell types, an observed increase in these metabolites combined with an increase in mI is usually interpreted as an increase in glial activation or cell density. 34,35 A possible mechanism for our observations may be increased microglial cell activation, a process widely reported in neurodegenerative diseases, 36 where glial cells increase in size and activity as part of an immune response to neurodegenerative stress to the CNS. 37 However, increases in microglia are also observed in aging of neurologically normal adults, [38][39][40] which may be linked to a number of progressive inflammatory processes that occur in the CNS during the decades of normal aging.…”

Cerebrospinal fluid and blood biomarkers for neurodegenerative dementias: An update of the Consensus of the Task Force on Biological Markers in Psychiatry of the World Federation of Societies of Biological Psychiatry

“…Proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (H-MRS) has been employed for many decades and has consistently confirmed the decrease in N-acetylaspartate (NAA) levels: the marker of normal neuronal functioning. Reductions are measurable with global techniques, such as the whole-brain NAA approach, as well as with single-voxel spectroscopy (Glodzik et al 2015; Ratai et al 2016). Reductions precede volume loss, as demonstrated by a study where MCI subjects had significantly higher grey matter volumes than AD patients, but their NAA levels did not differ (Glodzik et al 2015).…”

“…Reductions precede volume loss, as demonstrated by a study where MCI subjects had significantly higher grey matter volumes than AD patients, but their NAA levels did not differ (Glodzik et al 2015). Another feature of 1H-MRS in AD is an increase in myoinositol levels (Ratai et al 2016).…”