title: Longitudinal 1H MRS of rat forebrain from infancy to adulthood reveals adolescence as a distinctive phase of neurometabolite development.
abstract: This study represents the first longitudinal, within-subject (1) H MRS investigation of the developing rat brain spanning infancy, adolescence and early adulthood. We obtained neurometabolite profiles from a voxel located in a central location of the forebrain, centered on the striatum, with smaller contributions for the cortex, thalamus and hypothalamus, on postnatal days 7, 35 and 60. Water-scaled metabolite signals were corrected for T1 effects and quantified using the automated processing software LCModel, yielding molal concentrations. Our findings indicate age-related concentration changes in N-acetylaspartate + N-acetylaspartylglutamate, myo-inositol, glutamate + glutamine, taurine, creatine + phosphocreatine and glycerophosphocholine + phosphocholine. Using a repeated measures design and analysis, we identified significant neurodevelopment changes across all three developmental ages and identified adolescence as a distinctive phase in normative neurometabolic brain development. Between postnatal days 35 and 60, changes were observed in the concentrations of N-acetylaspartate + N-acetylaspartylglutamate, glutamate + glutamine and glycerophosphocholine + phosphocholine. Our data replicate past studies of early neurometabolite development and, for the first time, link maturational profiles in the same subjects across infancy, adolescence and adulthood.
authors: Program in Neuroscience, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Winston Salem, NC, USA.
authors: Jonathan J
authors: JJ
authors: Morgan
authors: Gale A
authors: GA
authors: Kleven
authors: Christina D
authors: CD
authors: Tulbert
authors: John
authors: J
authors: Olson
authors: David A
authors: DA
authors: Horita
authors: April E
authors: AE
authors: Ronca
mesh_terms: D000375:Aging; D000818:Animals; D001224:Aspartic Acid / Q000031:analogs & derivatives / Q000378:metabolism; D004151:Dipeptides / Q000378:metabolism; D018698:Glutamic Acid / Q000378:metabolism; D007294:Inositol / Q000378:metabolism; D009682:Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D010725:Phosphocreatine / Q000378:metabolism; D016548:Prosencephalon / Q000254:growth & development / Q000378:metabolism*; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D013654:Taurine / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D004151:Dipeptides; D010725:Phosphocreatine; D013654:Taurine; C027172:isospaglumic acid; D001224:Aspartic Acid; D018698:Glutamic Acid; D007294:Inositol; C000179:N-acetylaspartate