Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Koundal, Sunil
• Gandhi, Sonia
• Kaur, Tanzeer
• Khushu, Subash

Titel

Neurometabolic and structural alterations in rat brain due to acute hypobaric hypoxia: in vivo super(1)H MRS at 7T

Ist Teil von

• NMR in biomedicine, 2014-03, Vol.27 (3), p.341-347

Erscheinungsjahr

2014

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Wiley Online Library Journals Frontfile Complete

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• In response to hypobaric hypoxia (HH), which occurs at high altitude, the brain undergoes deleterious changes at the structural and metabolite level. In vivo T sub(2) weighted imaging (T2WI) and super(1)H-MRS was performed to understand the structural and metabolic changes in the hippocampus region of rat brain. Data were acquired pre-exposure (baseline controls), immediately after exposure and subsequently at the first, fourth, seventh and 14th days post exposure at normoxia. T sub(2) weighted images of rat brain showed hyperintensity in the CA2/CA3 region of the hippocampus 7 d after acute HH, which persisted till 14 d, probably indicating structural changes in the hippocampus. super(1)H-MRS results showed no change in metabolite level immediately after acute HH exposure, but on the first day of normoxia the myo-inositol level was significantly decreased, possibly due to altered astrocyte metabolism. Metabolic alterations showing an increase in choline and decrease in glutamate on the fourth day of normoxia may be seen as a process of demyelination and loss of glutamate pool respectively. On the seventh and 14th days of normoxia, decreases in N-acetylaspartate, creatine and glutamine+glutamate were observed, which might be due to decreased viability of glutamatergic neurons. In vivo super(1)H-MRS demonstrated early neurometabolic changes prior to probable structural changes post acute HH exposure. The extension of these studies will help in early risk assessment, developing intervention and strategies for combating HH related changes. Copyright copyright 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. In vivo T2WI and super(1)H-MRS reveal the structural and metabolic changes in the hippocampus region of rat brain post acute hypobaric hypoxic (HH) exposure of 48h. The up- and down-regulation of various metabolites such as myo-inositol, N-acetyl aspartate, creatine and glutamine+glutamate indicates altered astrocyte cellular metabolism, demyelination, neuronal loss and degenerative changes in the brain. These studies will be helpful in early prediction of pathology, which will help in the development of new neuroprotective drugs for combating HH induced changes.