Background
This study was conducted to corroborate prior evidence of an effect of the brain-derived
neurotrophic factor (BDNF) valine (val) to methionine (met) amino acid substitution
at codon 66 (val66met) polymorphism on measures of N-acetyl-aspartate (NAA) containing compounds in healthy subjects.
Methods
The NAA to creatine (Cre) ratio (NAA/Cre), NAA to choline (Cho) ratio (NAA/Cho), and
Cho to Cre ratio (Cho/Cre) were measured in the left and right hippocampi, left and
right dorsolateral prefrontal cortices, occipital lobe, anterior cingulate, and white
matter of the centrum semiovale of 69 carefully screened healthy volunteers utilizing
proton magnetic resonance spectroscopic imaging (MRSI) at 3 Tesla (T).
Results
Val/met subjects exhibited significantly reduced levels of left hippocampal NAA/Cre
and NAA/Cho compared with val/val subjects. This effect was independent of age, IQ,
number of voxels, hippocampal volume, or gray matter content in the voxels of interest.
Analysis of other brain regions showed no effect of BDNF genotype on NAA measures.
Conclusions
We confirmed the association between the met-BDNF variant and reduced levels of hippocampal
NAA found with a similar technique at 1.5T. The consonance of our results with prior
findings adds to the evidence that the BDNF val/met genotype affects hippocampal biology
with implications for a variety of neuropsychiatric disorders.
Key Words
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: August 19, 2008
Accepted:
July 7,
2008
Received in revised form:
June 19,
2008
Received:
January 30,
2008
Identification
Copyright
Published by Elsevier Inc.
