Thiamine (
vitamin B1) deficiency, associated with a variety of conditions, including chronic
alcoholism and
bariatric surgery for
morbid obesity, can result in the
neurological disorder Wernicke's encephalopathy (WE). Recent work building upon early observations in animal models of
thiamine deficiency has demonstrated an inflammatory component to the neuropathology observed in
thiamine deficiency. The present, multilevel study including in vivo magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and spectroscopy (MRS) and postmortem quantification of
chemokine and
cytokine proteins sought to determine whether a combination of these in vivo neuroimaging tools could be used to characterize an in vivo MR signature for
neuroinflammation.
Thiamine deficiency for 12days was used to model
neuroinflammation;
glucose loading in
thiamine deficiency was used to accelerate neurodegeneration. Among 38 animals with regional brain tissue assayed postmortem for
cytokine/
chemokine protein levels, three groups of rats (controls+glucose, n=6; pyrithiamine+saline, n=5; pyrithiamine+glucose, n=13) underwent MRI/MRS at baseline (time 1), after 12days of treatment (time 2), and 3h after challenge (
glucose or saline, time 3). In the thalamus of
glucose-challenged,
thiamine deficient animals, correlations between in vivo measures of pathology (lower levels of N-acetyle
aspartate and higher levels of
lactate) and postmortem levels of
monocyte chemotactic protein-1 (MCP-1, also known as
chemokine ligand 2, CCL2) support a role for this
chemokine in
thiamine deficiency-related neurodegeneration, but do not provide a unique in vivo signature for
neuroinflammation.