# Impaired Cerebral Glucose Uptake in the Brain as an MRI Marker for Alzheimer' s Disease

> **NIH NIH R21** · HUGO W. MOSER RES INST KENNEDY KRIEGER · 2020 · $445,941

## Abstract

Glucose metabolism is the major energy-producing pathway in the brain. Changes in cerebral glucose uptake
(CGU, which reflects delivery, transport and metabolism) have been reported for several neurodegenerative diseases.
However, a simple imaging approach to repeatedly and safely assess CGU as part of general daily clinical practice in most
hospitals is not available. Our overall goal is to develop and optimize a novel MRI method to detect changes in CGU with
the goal of future translation to the clinical assessment of neurodegenerative diseases. To demonstrate the approach, we
propose to develop and validate it on Alzheimer’s disease (AD) mouse models.
 AD is the most common cause of dementia, and currently, more than five million people have AD in the US alone. The
etiology of Alzheimer’s disease is unknown, and therapies also are not available. The accumulation of neurotic plaques
(Aβ) and neurofibrillary tangles (NFT), as well as the widespread gliosis, loss of synapses, and the degeneration of
neurons, are the major histopathological hallmarks of AD. A diagnosis of AD in the early stages of dementia cannot be
determined simply by the amyloid imaging, because many healthy older adults with brain Aβ deposits never develop
dementia in life. Many histological studies have confirmed that the neuronal degeneration is a stronger predictor of
dementia than AD pathology. The glucose hypometabolism, which correlates well with cognitive impairment, may be an
upstream event of AD. Thus, AD represents a disease model that would benefit better from the CGU measurement.
 We recently made one exciting discovery that the water frequency can be shifted by the glucose uptake after
intravenous glucose infusion. This new finding allows us measure glucose uptake in brain with much higher sensitivity
comparing to other MRI methods. Here, we will develop a new jump-return MRI technique that can measure the water
frequency shift with highly sensitivity, which allows us measure glucose uptake in brain with much lower glucose
concentration. The optimized jump-return MRI method will be applied on two Alzheimer's disease mouse models to
verify that the technique is sensitive enough to detect the impaired glucose uptake in brain comparing to the wild type
mice. Upon the successful completion of this proposal, we anticipate developing a new clinic-ready MRI technique and a
new MRI biomarker that detect and evaluate the Alzheimer's disease associated neuronal degeneration.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9872752
- **Project number:** 1R21AG065794-01
- **Recipient organization:** HUGO W. MOSER RES INST KENNEDY KRIEGER
- **Principal Investigator:** JIadi Xu
- **Activity code:** R21 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $445,941
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2020-01-01 → 2021-12-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9872752

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9872752, Impaired Cerebral Glucose Uptake in the Brain as an MRI Marker for Alzheimer' s Disease (1R21AG065794-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-06-01 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9872752. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*