Abstract #0454

Evidence for Two T2 Components of N-Acetyl-Aspartate (NAA) In Healthy White Matter

Erin L. MacMillan^1,2,3, Carina Graf^4,5, Cornelia Laule^4,5,6,7, and Alex L. MacKay^2,4,7

¹MR Clinical Science, Philips Healthcare Canada, Markham, ON, Canada, ²UBC MRI Research Centre, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada, ³ImageTech Lab, Simon Fraser University, Surrey, BC, Canada, ⁴Physics & Astronomy, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada, ⁵International Collaboration on Repair Discoveries, Vancouver, BC, Canada, ⁶Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada, ⁷Radiology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada

N-acetyl-aspartate (NAA) is commonly referred to as an ‘axonal marker’ but recent electron microscopy evidence demonstrates higher levels of NAA in myelin than in neurons. Given the multi-exponential T₂ nature of water in white matter (WM), we sought to determine if there are similarly two pools of NAA in WM. We performed multi-echo magnetic resonance spectroscopy in the WM of 5 healthy volunteers at 3T with TE from 10-800ms and observed a short T₂ component between 13-40ms arising from 16-20% of the total signal. These preliminary results encourage further research into the bi-exponential nature of NAA in WM.

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