Abstract #1219

Test-Retest Reliability of Key Metabolite Measurements in the Anterior Cingulate Cortex Using Single Voxel 1H Press at 3T

Murat Yucel^1,2, R. M. Wellard³, Ian Harding¹, Mike Kean⁴, Nadia Solowij⁵, Dan I. Lubman², Marc Seal¹, Alex Fornito¹, Stephen J. Wood¹, Christos Pantelis¹

¹Melbourne Neuropsychiatry Centre, Department of Psychiatry, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia; ²ORYGEN Youth Heath Research Centre, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia; ³Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia; ⁴Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, Australia; ⁵University of Wollongong, Australia

In vivo magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) can be used to study aspects of brain chemistry and metabolism, and has been increasingly applied to the study of pathophysiological mechanisms in neurological and psychiatric disorders. Despite such widespread use, very few studies have quantitatively examined the reliability of these MRS-derived indices. The aim of this study was to examine the test-retest reliability of proton-MRS derived measures of commonly investigated metabolites in a commonly investigated brain region the anterior cingulate cortex. Comparing test-retest variance in these metabolites with inter-subject variance allows us to determine how much of the group differences reported in the literature are due to individual (i.e., biological) versus methodological (i.e., instrumental) factors.