Brain Matter Corrected Quantification of Phosphomono- And Phosphodiesters in the Brain of Patients with Schizophrenia

Wolfgang Weber-Fahr¹, Mathias Zink², Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg², Monika Uhrig¹, Nuran Tunc-Skarka¹, Mareen Hoerst¹, Helga Welzel-marquez¹, Alexander Sartorius², Gabriele Ende¹

A 3D-whole head RINEPT sequence was used together with point-spread function corrected tissue segmentation for robust absolute quantification of spectral edited Phosphomono- and diester-signals in the brains of schizophrenic patients and controls. The corrected metabolite concentrations show a significant reduction of Phosphocholine and Glycerophosphocholine (GPC) in the basal ganglia and thalamus of schizophrenic patients compared to controls. GPC was also significantly lower in the cerebellum while Phosphorylethanolamine showed a trend for lower concentration in patients in the frontal region.