Co-investigators from other universities are not listed. These findings can serve as a database against which lower resolution, but in vivo, MRS studies can be compared. This will aid in the often-difficult interpretation of these in vivo spectroscopic findings. In addition, these studies stand alone as an exploration of metabolic changes found in postmortem AD brains. The findings from AD brains will also be compared to the findings derived from brains affected by other neurodegenerative disorders.
Metabolites involved with inositol metabolism appear to be most specific for AD brains.
This would allow noninvasive quantification in living patients of the same pathologic hallmarks that can now be studied only at the time of autopsy. Both of these actions have therapeutic potential. Finally, some of these compounds have intense fluorescent characteristics that have made them useful new cytochemical stains to study plaque and tangle pathology in postmortem AD brains. This project has the aim of studying older adults experiencing a six-hour phase delay in their routine. Five baseline days precede the day of the phase shift and nine recovery days follow it.