Abstract #3688

MR Spectroscopy of Hypobaric Hypoxia Induced Changes in Rat Brain Hippocampus Using 7Tesla

Sunil Koundal¹, Sonia Gandhi¹, Tanzeer Kaur², Subash Khushu¹, Rajendra P. Tripathi¹

¹NMR Research Centre, Institute of Nuclear Medicine and Allied Sciences (INMAS), Delhi, India; ²Department of Biophysics, Panjab University, Chandigarh, Panjab, India

High altitude related exposure results in decreased oxygen supply to brain. Brain being most sensitive to hypobaric hypoxia, gets adversely affected. Our study investigates the changes in metabolic profiles of rat brains hippocampus region due to acute hypobaric hypoxia stress and recovery using invivo magnetic resonance spectroscopy. Results showed significant decrease in levels of glutamate,myoinositol,NAA,creatine but increase in choline indicating hypobaric hypoxia induced damage in hippocampus of rat brain. These studies can be helpful in detecting early biomarkers for high altitude stress injuries in humans which can further be used for risk assessment & early diagnosis.