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Brain Metabolite Alterations in Children with Primary Nocturnal Enuresis Using Proton Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy

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Abstract

Nocturnal enuresis is a common developmental disorder in children; primary monosymptomatic nocturnal enuresis (PMNE) is the dominant subtype. Previous literature has suggested that the prefrontal cortex and the pons are both involved in micturition control. This study aimed to investigate the metabolic levels of the left prefrontal cortex and the pons in children with PMNE by proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H-MRS). Twenty-five children with PMNE and 25 healthy children took part in our experiments. Magnetic resonance examinations were performed on a Siemens 3T Trio Tim scanner. For each subject, localized 1H-MRS was acquired from the left prefrontal cortex (mainly in brodmann area 9) and the pons with a point-resolved spectroscopy sequence with repetition time 2,000 ms, echo time 30 ms and 64 averages. The LCModel software package was used to analyze the MRS raw data, and two-sample t tests were used to determine significant differences between the two groups. The results revealed a significant reduction in metabolite to total creatine ratios of N-acetylaspartate (NAA/tCr) in the left prefrontal cortex and the pons for children with PMNE compared to healthy children. Our study suggests that metabolism is disturbed in the prefrontal cortex and the pons in children with PMNE, which may be associated with the symptoms of enuresis.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China 81201082 (X. Du). The authors would like to thank reviewers and editors for their useful advice and suggestions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Shanghai Key Laboratory of Magnetic Resonance, Department of Physics, East China Normal University, 3663 North Zhong-Shan Road, Shanghai, 200062, People’s Republic of China

    Jing Zhang, Du Lei, Mengxing Wang, Guohua Shen, Hui Wang, Guang Yang & Xiaoxia Du

  2. Shanghai Key Laboratory of Children’s Environmental Health, Department of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics of Shanghai Children’s Medical Center, XinHua Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, 200127, People’s Republic of China

    Jun Ma

  3. Department of Radiology, MR Research Center, West China Hospital of Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610044, Sichuan, People’s Republic of China

    Du Lei

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  1. Jing Zhang
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Correspondence to Xiaoxia Du.

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Jing Zhang and Du Lei have contributed equally to this work.

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Zhang, J., Lei, D., Ma, J. et al. Brain Metabolite Alterations in Children with Primary Nocturnal Enuresis Using Proton Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy. Neurochem Res 39, 1355–1362 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11064-014-1320-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11064-014-1320-4

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