Regional Variations of Metabolite Concentrations in the Rat Brain Assessed with in vivo 1H MR Spectroscopy at 16.4T

Abstract

Regional differences of metabolites in the rat brain were investigated by using localized in vivo 1H MR spectroscopy at 16.4T. Three regions, thalamus, striatum and hippocampus, were investigated with an ultra-short TE STEAM sequence. The results demonstrated significant variations in all metabolites except aspartate and NAA. The remarkable variation of spectra was the substantially decreased level of the Tau methylene signal at 3.25 ppm in thalamus. The significant increase of the GABA methylene signal at 1.89 ppm was also observed in thalamus