Impaired response of cerebral oxygen metabolism to visual stimulation in Huntington’s disease
Peter Klinkmueller, Martin Kronenbuerger, Xinyuan Miao, Jee Bang, Kia E. Ultz, Adrian Paez, Xiaoyu Zhang, Wenzhen Duan, Russell L. Margolis, Peter C. van Zijl, Christopher A. Ross, Jun Hua
Abstract
Huntington’s disease (HD) is a neurodegenerative disease caused by a CAG triplet repeat expansion in the Huntingtin gene. Metabolic and microvascular abnormalities in the brain may contribute to early physiological changes that subserve the functional impairments in HD. This study is intended to investigate potential abnormality in dynamic changes in cerebral blood volume (CBV) and cerebral blood flow (CBF), and cerebral metabolic rate of oxygen (CMRO 2 ) in the brain in response to functional stimulation in premanifest and early manifest HD patients. A recently developed 3-D-TRiple-acquisition-after-Inversion-Preparation magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) approach was used to measure dynamic responses in CBV, CBF, and CMRO 2 during visual stimulation in one single MRI scan. Experiments were conducted in 23 HD patients and 16 healthy controls. Decreased occipital cortex CMRO 2 responses were observed in premanifest and early manifest HD patients compared to controls ( P < 0.001), correlating with the CAG-Age Product scores in these patients ( R 2 = 0.4, P = 0.001). The results suggest the potential value of this reduced CMRO 2 response during visual stimulation as a biomarker for HD and may illuminate the role of metabolic alterations in the pathophysiology of HD.