Mlanie Craveiro1, Laure Quignodon2,
Carole Berthet3, Matthew Hall2, Cristina Cudalbu1,
Lorenz Hirt3, Batrice Desvergne2, Rolf Gruetter1,4
1Laboratory for Functional
& Metabolic Imaging, Ecole Polytechnique Fdrale de Lausanne, Lausanne,
Switzerland; 2Center for Integrative Genomics, University of
Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland; 3Department of Neurology, Centre
Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois, Lausanne, Switzerland; 4Departments
of Radiology, Universities of Lausanne & Geneva, Switzerland
Recent studies have shown the neuroprotective role of PPARβ (peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor β) in several brain diseases and an increased sensitivity of PPARβ-knockout mice to ischemia. The aim of this study was to detect the metabolites involved in the neuroprotection through an early neurochemical comparison between PPARβ-knockout and wild-type mice after brain ischemia using MR spectroscopic imaging (SI). The use of SI on an ultra-high field 14.1 T provided a sensitive means to map the in vivo metabolite concentrations and allowed a sensitive localization of the lesion site. Finally, this study provided an optimal evaluation of metabolite concentration alterations inside the lesion caused by the neuroprotective deficit of PPARβ-knockout mice.