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Correlation between Choline Signal Intensity and Acetylcholine Level in Different Brain Regions of Rat

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Abstract

Acetylcholine is an important excitatory neurotransmitter, which plays a crucial role in synaptic transmission. The level of acetylcholine is decreased in the early stages of Alzheimer disease (AD), the most common neurodegenerative disease. Therefore, measurement of acetylcholine in the brain may help the clinical diagnosis of AD. However, the methods used till now to detect the brain acetylcholine level are invasive, which are neither recommended nor acceptable in the clinic. Acetylcholine is synthesized from choline-containing compounds (Cho), the latter can be estimated by noninvasive proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H MRS). To explore whether the Cho signal intensity could be used to represent the acetylcholine level in the brain, we employed 1H MRS to detect the Cho signal, and simultaneously, we also used microdialysis and high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) to measure the level of acetylcholine in hippocampus, striatum, frontal cortex, and somatosensory barrel field (S1BF cortex) of rats, respectively. The results showed that the correlations between Cho signal intensity and acetylcholine level in hippocampus, striatum, frontal cortex, and S1BF cortex were, respectively, 0.823 (p = 0.044), 0.851 (p = 0.032), 0.817 (p = 0.047), and 0.822 (p = 0.045). The F-values of the regression model were, respectively, 8.404 (p = 0.044), 10.47 (p = 0.032), 8.000 (p = 0.047), and 8.326 (p = 0.045). And the derived regression equations were y = 0.67x + 1.363 (hippocampus), y = 5.398x + 6.684 (striatum), y = 0.656x + 0.564 (frontal cortex), and y = 0.394x + 1.127 (S1BF cortex), respectively (y means acetylcholine, and x means Cho). These data suggest that the Cho signal intensity observed by 1H MRS may be used as an indicator of acetylcholine level in different brain regions of the rats.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Dr. Hao Lei (Wuhan Institute of Physics and Mathematics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, People’s Republic of China) for scientific discussion. This work was supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (30400103) and the National Science and Technology Committee of China (2006CB500703, 2006AA02Z4A1).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pathophysiology, Institute of Neuroscience, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430030, P.R. China

    Xiao-Chuan Wang, Qing Tian & Jian-Zhi Wang

  2. Hubei Provincial Key Laboratory of Neurological Diseases, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430030, P.R. China

    Xiao-Chuan Wang, Qing Tian & Jian-Zhi Wang

  3. State Key Laboratory of Magnetic Resonance and Atomic and Molecular Physics, Wuhan Institute of Physics and Mathematics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, 430071, P.R. China

    Xiao-Xia Du

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  1. Xiao-Chuan Wang
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  2. Xiao-Xia Du
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Correspondence to Jian-Zhi Wang.

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X.-C. Wang, X.-X. Du, and Q. Tian equally contributed to the work.

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Wang, XC., Du, XX., Tian, Q. et al. Correlation between Choline Signal Intensity and Acetylcholine Level in Different Brain Regions of Rat. Neurochem Res 33, 814–819 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11064-007-9509-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11064-007-9509-4

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