1H MRS brain measures and acute lorazepam administration in healthy human subjects

The effects of acute lorazepam administration on H-1 magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) in vivo brain spectra were examined in the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (L-DLPFC) of healthy human subjects. We wanted to examine whether lorazepam administration would result in significant changes in the levels of H-1-MRS metabolites in this brain region. Ten healthy controls underwent a short echo-time H-1-MRS session immediately before, and a second one 1 h after lorazepam administration (2mg/orally). Pie measured H-1-metabolites included IN-acetyl-aspartate, phosphocreatine+creatine, trimethylamines, myo-inositol, glutamate, and glutamine, which were expressed as absolute values and ratios. No significant differences were found after lorazepam administration for any Of the measured metabolite levels or ratios (paired t-tests, p > .05). This study demonstrated that lorazepam can potentially be utilized to acutely sedate psychiatric subjects during in vivo H-1-MRS sessions, as it does not appear to produce significant changes in Hie H-1-MRS spectra in this specific brain region. (C) 2002 American College of Neuropsychopharmacology. Publislied by Elsevier Science Inc.