Abdel-Aziz, K;
Solanky, BS;
Yiannakas, MC;
Altmann, DR;
Wheeler-Kingshott, CA;
Thompson, AJ;
Ciccarelli, O;
(2014)
Age related changes in metabolite concentrations in the normal spinal cord.
PLoS One
, 9
(10)
, Article e105774. 10.1371/journal.pone.0105774.
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Abstract
Magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) studies have previously described metabolite changes associated with aging of the healthy brain and provided insights into normal brain aging that can assist us in differentiating age-related changes from those associated with neurological disease. The present study investigates whether age-related changes in metabolite concentrations occur in the healthy cervical spinal cord. 25 healthy volunteers, aged 23-65 years, underwent conventional imaging and single-voxel MRS of the upper cervical cord using an optimised point resolved spectroscopy sequence on a 3T Achieva system. Metabolite concentrations normalised to unsuppressed water were quantified using LCModel and associations between age and spinal cord metabolite concentrations were examined using multiple regressions. A linear decline in total N-Acetyl-aspartate concentration (0.049 mmol/L lower per additional year of age, p = 0.010) and Glutamate-Glutamine concentration (0.054 mmol/L lower per additional year of age, p = 0.002) was seen within our sample age range, starting in the early twenties. The findings suggest that neuroaxonal loss and/or metabolic neuronal dysfunction, and decline in glutamate-glutamine neurotransmitter pool progress with aging.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Age related changes in metabolite concentrations in the normal spinal cord. |
| Location: | United States |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1371/journal.pone.0105774 |
| Publisher version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0105774 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © 2014 Abdel-Aziz et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology > Neuroinflammation |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1452142 |
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