title: 2D MR Spectroscopy Combined with Prior-Knowledge Fitting Is Sensitive to HCV-Associated Cerebral Metabolic Abnormalities.
abstract: There is an evidence of neurocognitive dysfunction even in the absence of advanced liver disease in chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. Brain metabolism has been investigated non-invasively using one-dimensional (1D) in vivo Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (MRS) over three decades. Even though highly concentrated cerebral metabolites (N-acetylaspartate, creatine, choline, glutamate/glutamine, myo-inositol) have been detected using MRS, other metabolites at low concentrations (~1-3 mM or less) including glutathione, aspartate and GABA are quite difficult to observe using 1D MRS. In order to resolve overlapping resonances from a number of metabolites, a remedy is to add a second spectral dimension to the existing 1D MRS. Localized two-dimensional correlated spectroscopy (L-COSY) has been developed over the last decade to enhance the spectral dispersion by using the second spectral dimension. We have evaluated this L-COSY technique in the frontal white/gray matter regions of 14 HCV+ (mean age of 56.2 years) and 14 HCV- (mean age of 46.6 years) subjects. Our preliminary results showed significantly increased myo-inositol and glutathione in the HCV+ compared to the HCV- subjects. Hence, glutathione and myo-inositol should be considered along with other metabolites as important markers of inflammation.
authors: Department of Radiological Sciences, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1721, USA.
authors: Rajakumar
authors: R
authors: Nagarajan
authors: Manoj K
authors: MK
authors: Sarma
authors: April D
authors: AD
authors: Thames
authors: Steven A
authors: SA
authors: Castellon
authors: Charles H
authors: CH
authors: Hinkin
authors: M Albert
authors: MA
authors: Thomas