BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE In acute ischemic stroke, the amount of neuronal damage in hyperintense areas on MR diffusion imaging (DWI) is unclear. We used spectroscopic imaging to measure N-acetyl aspartate (NAA, a marker of normal neurons) and lactate (a marker of ischemia) to compare with diffusion and perfusion values in the diffusion lesion in acute ischemic stroke. METHODS We recruited patie...

BACKGROUND Greater educational attainment is associated with better neurocognitive health in older adults and is thought to reflect a measure of cognitive reserve. In vivo neuroimaging tools have begun to identify the brain systems and networks potentially responsible for reserve. METHODS We examined the relationship between education, a commonly used proxy for cognitive reserve, and N-acetyl...

In healthy individuals, a substantial proportion of circulating Abs exhibit polyreactivity and self-reactivity. These Abs are referred to as natural autoantibodies (NAAs). As part of the innate immunity, NAAs play an important role in eliminating pathogens. However, inherent to their poly/autoreactivity is the potential for NAAs to differentiate to high-affinity autoantibodies during an immune ...

PURPOSE To determine the neurometabolism of patients with active neuropsychiatric systemic lupus erythematosus (NPSLE) by using proton MR spectroscopy. METHODS Thirty-six patients with SLE and eight control subjects were studied with proton MR spectroscopy to measure brain metabolites. Peaks from N-acetylaspartate (NAA), creatine (Cr), choline (Cho), and at 1.3 parts per million (ppm) lipid, ...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE The diagnosis of gliomatosis cerebri with MR imaging is known to be difficult. We report on the value of MR spectroscopy in the diagnosis, grading, and biopsy planing in eight patients with histopathologically proved gliomatosis cerebri. METHODS Patients underwent MR imaging and MR spectroscopy (single-voxel point-resolved spectroscopy [PRESS] at 1500/135, and chemical-...

Histone acetylation depends on the abundance of nucleo-cytoplasmic acetyl-CoA. Here, we present a novel route for cytoplasmic acetyl-CoA production in brown adipocytes. N-acetylaspartate (NAA) is a highly abundant brain metabolite catabolized by aspartoacylase yielding aspartate and acetate. The latter can be further used for acetyl-CoA production. Prior to this work, the presence of NAA has no...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE MR spectroscopy allows the noninvasive evaluation of in vivo brain metabolites. Our purpose was to use this technique to assess metabolic alterations in the human cerebrum during growth, maturation, and aging. METHODS Ninety normal human brains in subjects aged 4 to 88 years were examined with multivoxel proton MR spectroscopy. Spectra were obtained from specific voxels...

To determine if proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy ((1)H-MRS) detect differences in dementia status in adults with Down syndrome (DS), we used (1)H-MRS to measure neuronal and glial metabolites in the posterior cingulate cortex in 22 adults with DS and in 15 age- and gender-matched healthy controls. We evaluated associations between (1)H-MRS results and cognition among DS participants. Neur...

Over the past two decades, many magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) studies reported lower N-acetylaspartate (NAA) in key brain regions of patients with schizophrenia (SZ) compared to healthy subjects. A smaller number of studies report no difference in NAA. Many sources of variance may contribute to these discordant results including heterogeneity of the SZ subject populations and methodolog...

PURPOSE To evaluate the diagnostic value of 3T (1)H-MRS in grading cerebral gliomas using short and long echo times. METHODS 1H-MRS was performed on 71 patients with untreated cerebral gliomas. Metabolite ratios of NAA/Cr, Cho/Cr, Cho/NAA, and mI/Cr were calculated for short and long TE and compared between low and high grade gliomas. Lipids were qualitatively evaluated. ROC analysis was perf...