Regional Metabolic Alterations in Alzheimer's Disease: an in Vitro 1H NMR Study of the Hippocampus and Cerebellum

The concentrations of selected metabolites in the hippocampus and cerebellum of 13 Alzheimer's diseased (AD) and four nondemented postmortem brains were measured using high resolution 1H NMR spectroscopy. For both the hippocampal region and the cerebellum, the putative neuronal marker N-acetyl aspartate (NAA) was significantly lower in AD brains relative to the nondemented brains. For the hippocampal region, the NAA concentration correlated inversely with semiquantitative assessments of neuronal loss and neurofibrillary tangles. The gamma-aminobutyric acid levels in both hippocampus and cerebellum of an age- and a postmortem interval-matched subset of AD brains were lower than those of the controls. Because the cerebellum is generally thought to be unaffected by AD, the NAA decrease in the Alzheimer cerebellum may be due to lesions of either the Alzheimer or non-Alzheimer type in contralateral cerebrum.