Abdel-Aziz Khaled, Solanky Bhavana S, Yiannakas Marios C, Altmann Daniel R, Wheeler-Kingshott Claudia A M, Thompson Alan J, Ciccarelli Olga
NMR Research Unit, UCL Institute of Neurology, London, United Kingdom; Department of Brain Repair and Rehabilitation, UCL Institute of Neurology, London, United Kingdom.
NMR Research Unit, UCL Institute of Neurology, London, United Kingdom; Department of Neuroinflammation, UCL Institute of Neurology, London, United Kingdom.
PLoS One. 2014 Oct 13;9(10):e105774. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0105774. eCollection 2014.
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.
磁共振波谱（MRS）研究此前已描述了与健康大脑衰老相关的代谢物变化，并为正常脑衰老提供了见解，这有助于我们区分与年龄相关的变化和与神经疾病相关的变化。本研究调查了健康颈脊髓中代谢物浓度是否会随年龄发生变化。25名年龄在23至65岁之间的健康志愿者在3T Achieva系统上使用优化的点分辨波谱序列对上颈髓进行了常规成像和单体素MRS检查。使用LCModel对归一化至未抑制水的代谢物浓度进行定量，并使用多元回归分析年龄与脊髓代谢物浓度之间的关联。在我们的样本年龄范围内，从二十出头开始，总N-乙酰天门冬氨酸浓度（每增加一岁降低0.049 mmol/L，p = 0.010）和谷氨酸-谷氨酰胺浓度（每增加一岁降低0.054 mmol/L，p = 0.002）呈线性下降。研究结果表明，神经轴突丢失和/或代谢性神经元功能障碍以及谷氨酸-谷氨酰胺神经递质池的减少会随着年龄增长而进展。
