Faculty Bibliography

The metabolism of the polyamines, putrescine, spermidine and spermine, was studied in human brain and brain tumors. Samples of brain and tumors were incubated with 3H-putrescine and the amounts of labeled polyamines were measured. The amount of putrescine conversion was found to be greater in tumors that in normal brain samples. Furthermore, the metabolism of putrescine in brain tumors was related to tumor type and appeared to correlate with the degree of malignancy. The significance of these findings with regard to positron emission tomographic scanning and therapy of patients with malignant gliomas is discussed

Local cerebral metabolic rates were determined by positron emission tomography and the deoxyglucose method in a group of 10 chronic schizophrenic subjects before and after somatic treatment and in eight normal subjects. Before treatment, schizophrenic subjects had markedly lower absolute metabolic activity than did normal controls in both frontal and temporal regions and a trend toward relative hyperactivity in the basal ganglia area. After treatment, their metabolic rates approached those seen in normal subjects in nearly all regions except frontal. Persistence of diminished frontal metabolism was manifested as significant relative hypofrontality. These findings suggest specific loci of aberrant cerebral functioning in chronic schizophrenia and the utility of positron emission tomography in characterizing these abnormalities

Thirteen diagnosed schizophrenics and 11 normal controls were studied with a method using the PETT III positron emission tomograph (PET) and fluorodeoxyglucose labeled with fluorine 18. Each subject also had a computed tomographic (CT) scan. For each subject, two brain levels, one through the basal ganglia and one through the semioval center, were analyzed for the mean regional metabolic glucose rate. Specifically, relationships between frontal and posterior regions were evaluated. The CT scans of matching levels were superimposed on the functional PET images to provide anatomic criteria for region of interest selection. While no whole-slice metabolic differences were apparent between groups, schizophrenics had significantly lower activity in the frontal lobes, relative to posterior regions. The medicated and drug-free groups did not differ from one another in these regards. Trait v state dependency of the phenomenon was analyzed, and several technological limitations were considered.

The relationship between alterations in brain structure and brain function was studied in vivo in both young and elderly human subjects. Computed tomography revealed significant age-related ventricular and cortical sulcal dilatation. The cortical changes were most closely related to age. Positron emission tomography failed to show regional changes in brain glucose metabolic rate. The results suggest that the normal aging brain undergoes structural atrophic changes without incurring regional metabolic changes. Examination of the correlations between the structural and the metabolic measures revealed no significant relationships. These data are discussed with respect to the significant structure-function relationships that have been reported in Alzheimer disease.

Six patients with chronic schizophrenia were studied with positron emission tomography (PET) before and after neuroleptic treatment, using fluorine-18-labeled fluorodeoxyglucose. After treatment, the mean whole-slice glucose metabolic rate at the level of the basal ganglia showed a 25% increase. However, patterns of frontal hypometabolism observed with the schizophrenic patients were not altered by medication. Pattern analysis using the fast Fourier transform was applied to a set of 422 images from a mixed group of normal, depressed, and schizophrenic subjects. Reconstruction of the images with low-frequency coefficients was excellent, reducing considerably the number of variables needed to characterize each image. Hierarchical cluster analysis categorized the transformed images according to anatomical level and subject group (patient versus control). The results suggest the utility of this procedure for the classification and characterization of metabolic PET images from psychiatric patients

The polyamine metabolism of transplanted N-nitrosomethylurea-derived rat glioma was determined with radiolabeled putrescine used as a marker for malignancy. The uptake of putrescine in vivo was complete within 5 minutes and was specific for tumor tissue. The conversion of putrescine to spermine and other metabolites by the tumor was rapid, in contrast to the case for adjacent normal brain. These results suggest that putrescine labeled with carbon-11 may be used as a positron-emission tomographic tracer for the selective metabolic imaging of brain tumor and may be used in an appropriate model as a marker for tumor growth rate