Quantitative Assessment of Occipital Metabolic and Energetic Changes in Parkinson’s Patients, Using In Vivo 31P MRS-Based Metabolic Imaging at 7T

Xiao Hong Zhu, Byeong Yeul Lee, Paul Tuite, Lisa Coles, Abhishek G. Sathe, Chi Chen, Jim Cloyd, Walter C. Low, Clifford J. Steer, Wei Chen

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

14 Scopus citations

Abstract

Abnormal energy metabolism associated with mitochondrial dysfunction is thought to be a major contributor to the progression of neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s disease (PD). Recent advancements in the field of magnetic resonance (MR) based metabolic imaging provide stateof-the-art technologies for non-invasively probing cerebral energy metabolism under various brain conditions. In this proof-of-principle clinical study, we employed quantitative31P MR spectroscopy (MRS) imaging techniques to determine a constellation of metabolic and bioenergetic parameters, including cerebral adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and other phosphorous metabolite concentrations, intracellular pH and nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) redox ratio, and ATP production rates in the occipital lobe of cognitive-normal PD patients, and then we compared them with age-sex matched healthy controls. Small but statistically significant differences in intracellular pH, NAD and ATP contents and ATPase enzyme activity between the two groups were detected, suggesting that subtle defects in energy metabolism and mitochondrial function are quantifiable before regional neurological deficits or pathogenesis begin to occur in these patients. Pilot data aiming to evaluate the bioenergetic effect of mitochondrial-protective bile acid, ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA) were also obtained. These results collectively demonstrated that in vivo31P MRS-based neuroimaging can non-invasively and quantitatively assess key metabolic-energetic metrics in the human brain. This provides an exciting opportunity to better understand neurodegenerative diseases, their progression and response to treatment.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number145
JournalMetabolites
Volume11
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - 2021

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
Funding: This work was partially supported by a University of Minnesota Academic Health Center Faculty Research Development Grant; NIH Grants: R01 MH111413, R01 CA240953, R01 NS118330, U01 EB026978, P41 EB027061, P30 NS076408, and the University of Minnesota Foundation.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

Keywords

  • Cerebral ATP energy metabolism
  • Human brain
  • In vivoP MRS-based metabolic imaging
  • Neurodegenerative disease
  • Ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA)

Center for Magnetic Resonance Research (CMRR) tags

  • BEMIT
  • MFMM
  • ANDI
  • P41

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