Eva-Maria Ratai1,2, Robert Fell3,
Margaret Lentz2,3, Julian He2,3, Tricia Burdo4,
Lakshmanan Annamalai5, Elkan Halpern2,6, Eliezer
Masliah7, Susan Westmoreland2,5, Kenneth Williams4,
R. Gilberto Gonzlez2,3
1Department of Radiology,
Neuroradiology Division, A. A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging,
Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA, United States; 2Harvard
Medical School, Boston, MA, United States; 3Department of
Radiology, Neuroradiology Division, A. A. Martinos Center for Biomedical
Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA, United States; 4Biology
Department, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, United States; 5Division
of Comparative Pathology, New England Primate Research Center, Southborough,
MA, United States; 6Institute for Technology Assessment,
Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, United
States; 7Department of Neurosciences, University of California at
San Diego, La Jolla, United States
The objective of this study was to understand the changes in choline concentrations measured by MR spectroscopy in an accelerated SIV-infected macaque model of neuroAIDS. During the first two weeks of SIV infection, choline significantly increases, then returns to baseline values or below. With further disease progression, choline elevations are again observed at 8 weeks post infection. Acute/early increases in choline levels at 2 weeks correlated with the initial inflammatory response measured by monocyte chemoattractant protein (MCP)-1 while increases in choline levels during later stages of SIV-infection correlated with astroglial activation measured by glial fibrillary acidic protein.