Brain biochemistry in Williams syndrome: evidence for a role of the cerebellum in cognition?

OBJECTIVE: To determine what biochemical changes may occur in the brain in Williams syndrome (WS) and whether these changes may be related to the cognitive deficits.

BACKGROUND: WS is a rare, congenital disorder with a characteristic physical, linguistic, and behavioral phenotype with known cognitive deficits.

METHODS: We obtained 31P magnetic resonance spectra (MRS) from a region consisting of mostly frontal and parietal lobe of 14 patients with WS (age, 8 to 37 years) and 48 similarly-aged controls. 1H MRS (27 cm3) localized to the left cerebellum obtained from the WS cohort were compared with those from 16 chronological age- and sex-matched normal controls. A battery of cognitive tests were administered to all subjects undergoing 1H MRS.

RESULTS: WS brains exhibited significant biochemical abnormalities. All 31P MRS ratios containing the phosphomonoester (PME) peak were significantly altered in WS, suggesting that PME is significantly decreased. Ratios of choline-containing compounds and creatine-containing compounds to N-acetylaspartate (Cho/NA and Cre/NA) were significantly elevated in the cerebellum in WS cf. controls, whereas the ratio of Cho/Cre was not altered. This suggests a decrease in the neuronal marker N-acetylaspartate in the cerebellum. Significant correlations were found between the cerebellar ratios Cho/NA and Cre/NA and the ability of all subjects at various neuropsychological tests, including Verbal and Performance IQ, British Picture Vocabulary Scale, Ravens Progressive Matrices, and Inspection Time.

CONCLUSIONS: The correlations can be interpreted in two ways: 1) Our sampling of cerebellar biochemistry reflects a measure of "global" cerebral biochemistry and is unrelated to cerebellar function, or 2) The relations indicate that cerebellar neuronal integrity is a requirement (on a developmental time scale or in real-time) for ability on a variety of cognitive tests.