The Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, 9190401, Israel.
Department of Genetics, The Institute of Life Sciences, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, 9190401, Israel.
Nat Commun. 2019 Jul 30;10(1):3403. doi: 10.1038/s41467-019-11319-1.
It is an open question whether aging-related changes throughout the brain are driven by a common factor or result from several distinct molecular mechanisms. Quantitative magnetic resonance imaging (qMRI) provides biophysical parametric measurements allowing for non-invasive mapping of the aging human brain. However, qMRI measurements change in response to both molecular composition and water content. Here, we present a tissue relaxivity approach that disentangles these two tissue components and decodes molecular information from the MRI signal. Our approach enables us to reveal the molecular composition of lipid samples and predict lipidomics measurements of the brain. It produces unique molecular signatures across the brain, which are correlated with specific gene-expression profiles. We uncover region-specific molecular changes associated with brain aging. These changes are independent from other MRI aging markers. Our approach opens the door to a quantitative characterization of the biological sources for aging, that until now was possible only post-mortem.
衰老是一个普遍存在的问题，它涉及到大脑的多个不同的分子机制，还是仅仅由一个共同的因素驱动，这仍有待探讨。定量磁共振成像（qMRI）提供了生物物理参数测量，允许对衰老的人脑进行非侵入性的映射。然而，qMRI 测量会受到分子成分和含水量的双重影响。在这里，我们提出了一种组织弛豫率方法，可以将这两种组织成分分离开来，并从 MRI 信号中解码分子信息。我们的方法使我们能够揭示脂质样本的分子成分，并预测大脑的脂质组学测量值。它在整个大脑中产生了独特的分子特征，这些特征与特定的基因表达谱相关。我们揭示了与大脑衰老相关的特定区域的分子变化。这些变化与其他 MRI 衰老标志物无关。我们的方法为定量描述衰老的生物学来源打开了大门，而这些生物学来源直到现在只能在死后进行研究。
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