In vivo magnetic resonance spectroscopy

• They found:
  Those with CHD had higher levels of choline and lower levels of N-Acetyl aspartate-to-choline ratios compared to healthy babies, potentially representing disrupted brain development.
• Babies with more complex CHD also had higher levels of cerebral lactate compared to babies with two ventricle CHD.
• These critical heart defects generally require babies to undergo heart surgery not long after birth.
• , chief of the Advanced Technologies and Surgery Branch in the Division of Cardiovascular Sciences at the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.

• The posters presented from Alterity’s bioMUSE study address the need for incorporating biomarkers as a critical component for diagnosis of MSA.
• The diagnosis of early MSA can be challenging as individuals often present similarly to Parkinson’s disease (PD).
• In contrast to PD, MSA is rapidly progressive and, therefore, it is vital to accurately diagnose patients enrolling in clinical trials.
• The poster entitled, “A multimodal approach for diagnosis of early Multiple System Atrophy” was presented by Dr. Claassen.

• But OCD is actually a severe and disabling disorder characterised by obsessions – recurrent intrusive thoughts, impulses or images that are unwanted and anxiety provoking.
• Some people with OCD are engaged in rituals for much of their waking life and cannot even leave their homes.
• But in our new research, published in Nature Communications, we discovered an imbalance in brain chemicals in OCD that could lead to radically different and improved treatments.
• Scientists have suspected that this involves an imbalance between chemical messengers, or neurotransmitters, called
  glutamate and gamma-aminobutyric acid (Gaba) in certain brain regions.

Magnetic resonance spectroscopy

• To study glutamate and Gaba, we used a high-strength magnet (called 7-Tesla) to perform magnetic resonance spectroscopy.
• This helps scientists to measure what kind of chemicals exist there – and their concentration.
• This allowed us to detect and measure glutamate and Gaba levels separately in different brain regions.
• Importantly, the clinical severity of compulsive symptoms of OCD correlated with the glutamate levels we measured in the SMA.

Future treatments

• The finding raises hopes for better treatments for OCD, focusing on re-balancing glutamate and Gaba levels in key brain regions.
• In patients with extremely severe OCD, for whom all other usual treatments have failed, surgeons have actually removed the ACC.
• And for less severely impaired patients where such drastic treatments are not justified, there may be therapeutic possibilities of using “transcranial magnetic stimulation”.
• In future, if OCD is diagnosed early in the course of the illness – and the chemical imbalance we have discovered is also detected – then these new treatments offer hope for improved quality of life and wellbeing for patients the disorder.

• In several domains, the observed improvement in treated patients are in contrast to the observed deterioration in untreated age-matched CD patients within Myrtelle’s natural history data set.
• In CD, normal brain development is impaired due to a mutation in the ASPA gene that encodes the enzyme Aspartoacylase (ASPA).
• The oligodendrocyte-targeting rAAV vector-based gene therapy is intended to restore ASPA function and hence the metabolism of NAA and brain development in patients with CD.
• In addition, volumetric MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) measurements showed increases in multiple brain tissue compartments and reductions in CSF volume.