Elucidating Metabolic Maturation in the Healthy Fetal Brain Using1H-MR Spectroscopy

• DOI: 10.3174/ajnr.a4512
• Publication Date: 2015-09-25T03:00:50Z
• Authors: I.E. Evangelou; A.J. du Plessis; G. Vezina; R. Noeske; C. Limperopoulos
• Keywords: Adult; Aspartic Acid; Proton Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy; Brain; Gestational Age; Creatine; Choline; Fetal Development; 03 medical and health sciences; Fetus; 0302 clinical medicine; Pregnancy; Reference Values; Humans; Female

<h3>BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE:</h3> ¹H-MRS provides a noninvasive way to study fetal brain maturation at the biochemical level. The purpose of this was characterize in vivo metabolic healthy during second and third trimester using ¹H-MRS. <h3>MATERIALS METHODS:</h3> Healthy pregnant volunteers between 18 40 weeks gestational age underwent single voxel MR spectra were retrospectively corrected for motion-induced artifacts quantified LCModel. Linear regression used examine relationship absolute metabolite concentrations ratios total NAA, Cr, Cho Cr age. <h3>RESULTS:</h3> Two hundred four acquired from 129 women mean 30.63 ± 6 weeks. Total remained relatively stable across (<i>r</i>² = 0.04, <i>P</i> .01). Both 0.60, &lt; .0001) as well NAA 0.58, increased significantly weeks, whereas exhibited slower increase 0.12, .0001). also 0.53, .0001), decreased 0.52, with cohort stratified into those that MRS trimesters analyzed separately. <h3>CONCLUSIONS:</h3> We characterized changes normal pregnancy derived normative indices. These reference values can be vivo.