Activation induced changes in GABA: Functional MRS at 7T with MEGA-sLASER
Auer, Dorothee P Morgan, Paul S
Auer, Dorothee P
Morgan, Paul S
Abstract
Functional magnetic resonance spectroscopy (fMRS) has been used to assess the dynamic metabolic responses of the brain to a physiological stimulus non-invasively. However, only limited information on the dynamic functional response of gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), the primary inhibitory neurotransmitter in the brain, is available. We aimed to measure the activation-induced changes in GABA unambiguously using a spectral editing method, instead of the conventional direct detection techniques used in previous fMRS studies. The Mescher-Garwood-semi-localised by adiabatic selective refocusing (MEGA-sLASER) sequence was developed at 7T to obtain the time course of GABA concentration without macromolecular contamination. A significant decrease (-12+/-5%) in the GABA to total creatine ratio (GABA/tCr) was observed in the motor cortex during a period of 10min of hand-clenching, compared to an initial baseline level (GABA/tCr =0.11+/-0.02) at rest. An increase in the Glx (glutamate and glutamine) to tCr ratio was also found, which is in agreement with previous findings. In contrast, no significant changes in NAA/tCr and tCr were detected. With consistent and highly efficient editing performance for GABA detection and the advantage of visually identifying GABA resonances in the spectra, MEGA-sLASER is demonstrated to be an effective method for studying of dynamic changes in GABA at 7T. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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2017
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Chen, C., Sigurdsson, H.P., Pepes, S.E., Auer, D.P., Morris, P.G., Morgan, P.S., Gowland, P.A. and Jackson, S.R. (2017) 'Activation induced changes in GABA: Functional MRS at 7T with MEGA-sLASER', NeuroImage, 156, pp. 207-213. doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2017.05.044.