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. 2013 Feb 1:66:161-8.
doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2012.10.014. Epub 2012 Oct 13.

Relationship between fractional anisotropy of cerebral white matter and metabolite concentrations measured using (1)H magnetic resonance spectroscopy in healthy adults

S A Wijtenburg  1 , S A McGuire  2 , L M Rowland  1 , P M Sherman  3 , J L Lancaster  4 , D F Tate  4 , L J Hardies  4 , B Patel  5 , D C Glahn  6 , L E Hong  1 , P T Fox  4 , P Kochunov  7
Affiliations

Relationship between fractional anisotropy of cerebral white matter and metabolite concentrations measured using (1)H magnetic resonance spectroscopy in healthy adults

S A Wijtenburg et al. Neuroimage. .

Abstract

Fractional anisotropy (FA) of water diffusion in cerebral white matter (WM), derived from diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), is a sensitive index of microscopic WM integrity. Physiological and metabolic factors that explain intersubject variability in FA values were evaluated in two cohorts of healthy adults of different age spans (N=65, range: 28-50years; and N=25, age=66.6±6.2, range: 57-80years). Single voxel magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) was used to measure N-acetylaspartate (NAA), total choline-containing compounds, and total creatine, bilaterally in an associative WM tract: anterior corona radiata (ACR). FA values were calculated for the underlying, proximal and two distal WM regions. Two-stage regression analysis was used to calculate the proportion of variability in FA values explained by spectroscopy measurements, at the first stage, and subject's age, at the second stage. WM NAA concentration explained 23% and 66% of intersubject variability (p<0.001) in the FA of the underlying WM in the younger and older cohorts, respectively. WM NAA concentration also explained a significant proportion of variability in FA of the genu of corpus callosum (CC), a proximal WM tract where some of the fibers contained within the spectroscopic voxel decussate. NAA concentrations also explained a significant proportion of variability in the FA values in the splenium of CC, a distal WM tract that also carries associative fibers, in both cohorts. These results suggest that MRS measurements explained a significant proportion of variability in FA values in both proximal and distal WM tracts that carry similar fiber-types.

Keywords: Diffusion tensor imaging; Magnetic resonance spectroscopy; N-acetylaspartate; White matter.

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Conflict of interest statement

Disclosure

Authors have no conflict of interest information to disclose.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The age-trends for the two subject groups are overlaid on the average FA values (●) for anterior corona radiata (ACR) tract based on data reported in Kochunov et al., 2012. The two cohorts selected for this study represent two distinct types of aging: young subjects were characterized by a subtle decline in the FA values with age (squares, dotted line, slope=−0.0009 FA/year, r=0.24, p=0.25) and old subjects were characterized by a nearly doubled rate of age-related decline in FA values (circles, dashed line, slope=−0.0017 FA/year, r=0.36, p=0.05). These data were collected on different scanners, using different DTI protocols and therefore a direct inter-group comparison among FA values is not possible.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Left. An axial slice (Talairach Z=10) shows the placement of bilateral spectroscopy voxels (blue boxes) with respect to the TBSS skeleton of WM tracts (average FA values color-coded from red to yellow) and two regions of interest extracted from JHU WM atlas: The genu of corpus callosum (white outline) and the anterior corona radiate (green outline). The sagittal slice through the interhemispheric fissure (Talairach X=0) shows the parcelation of corpus callosum into genu, body and splenium. Right. The representative 135-ms TE PRESS spectrum acquired from one of the voxels. Spectroscopic data from each hemisphere were fit in LCModel, and the results (red curve) were averaged after determining that the metabolite concentrations from each hemisphere were not significantly different.
Figure 3
Figure 3
FA values for the spectroscopic region of interest (sROI) and the corresponding linear trends were plotted vs. NAA concentrations in the young (solid circle markers, dashed line, FA=0.010*[NAA] + 0.39, r2=0.21, p=0.0002) and old (hollow square markers, FA=0.013*[NAA] + 0.33, r2=0.66, p=0.00001) cohorts.
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