Anti-diabetic Treatment Effect on Early-Stage Neurodegeneration. In vivo MRI and MRS Study in Rats

While anti-diabetic drugs are known to potentially delay the onset of dementia, little is known about their impact on brain structure and metabolism. This study aims to investigate the structural and neurochemical changes that occur following metformin treatment in a rat model of D-galactose induced brain degeneration. Both MR imaging and spectroscopy methods were used for hippocampal volume evaluation and metabolic profiling, respectively. Our findings confirmed the presence of hippocampal atrophy and respective metabolite changes, including increased myo-inositol/(total creatine), glutamate/(total creatine) and choline/(total creatine) ratios, during the early stages of neurodegeneration. However, metformin administration did not reduce hippocampal shrinkage, and the positive treatment effects were observed only by MR spectroscopy.