TY - JOUR T1 - <strong>Changes in Regional Cerebral Blood Flow during Acetyl-1-Carnitine Treatment in Early Alzheimer's Disease</strong> JF - Journal of Nuclear Medicine JO - J Nucl Med SP - 1658 LP - 1658 VL - 59 IS - supplement 1 AU - Yong An Chung AU - In-Uk Song Y1 - 2018/05/01 UR - http://jnm.snmjournals.org/content/59/supplement_1/1658.abstract N2 - 1658Purpose: Although beneficial effects of acetyl-L-carnitine (ALC) in Alzheimer's disease (AD) have been reported, underlying neural correlates remain unclear. The current study aimed to investigate cerebral perfusion changes after ALC treatment in AD patients using technetium-99m hexamethylpropylene amine oxime single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) METHOD AND MATERIALS: A total of 18 patients with early AD were recruited and assessed with brain SPECT, Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR), Global Deterioration Scale (GDS), and Neuropsychiatric Inventory (NPI). Changes in brain perfusion, severity of dementia, cognitive performance, and neuropsychiatric disturbances after ALC administration were examined. RESULTS: After approximately 1.4 years of ALC administration, changes in the scores of MMSE, CDR, GDS, and NPI were not significant. Voxel-wise whole-brain image analysis revealed that increased perfusion was found in the right precuneus (p &lt; 0.001) whereas perfusion reductions were detected in the left inferior temporal gyrus (p &lt; 0.001), right middle frontal gyrus (p &lt; 0.001), and right insular cortex (p = 0.001) at the follow-up. CONCLUSION: Our findings suggest that ALC-induced perfusion increase in the precuneus may attenuate progressive deterioration of cognitive function and neuropsychiatric symptoms. ER -