William E. Wu1, Assaf Tal1, Ivan Kirov1, Henry Rusinek1, James Babb1, Eva-Maria Ratai2, Chan-Gyu Joo2, R Gilberto Gonzalez2, Oded Gonen1
1Radiology, New York University School of Medicine, New York, NY, United States; 2Neuroradiology, Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging and Neuroradiology, Charlestown, MA, United States
Because of its very similar pathology to HIV-infected humans, the simian immunodeficiency virus-infected rhesus macaque is often studied. Unfortunately, the relative dysfunction of global brain gray and white matter (GM, WM) remains unknown. To assess this, we performed three-dimensional proton MR spectroscopy over extensive, ~35% of the macaque brain, volume at 0.125cm3 spatial resolution and compared the absolute N-acetylaspartate (NAA), creatine (Cr), choline (Cho), and myo-inositol (mI) concentrations in five rhesus macaques at baseline and 4-6-weeks post-infection. We report Cho decline was characterized mostly by global GM pathology (down 20%), and NAA loss occurred mainly in the WM (down 8%).