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Background

Dementia is a worldwide concern, where the primary risk factor is age. Prior literature reports age-related changes to regional brain volume, cognitive decline and changes to neurometabolites. In particular the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) experiences decreased metabolism associated with brain atrophy and amyloid deposition in Alzheimer's disease. Chiu et al.(2013) reported a significant positive correlation of choline, creatine, and N-acetyl-aspartate (NAA) with age, while Reyngoudt et al.(2012) only found increases of total creatine and myo-inositol in the PCC in aging. The purpose of this study was to investigate glutamate (Glu) changes in the posterior cingulate cortex across age.

Methods

Single voxel spectroscopy was performed using point resolved spectroscopy (PRESS) with an echo time of 105 ms and repetition time of 2000 ms on a 3T scanner. We measured neurometabolites …