Effect of long-term feeding with acetyl-L-carnitine on the age-related changes in rat brain lipid composition: A study by P-31 NMR spectroscopy

Changes in brain lipid composition have been determined in 24 months-old Fi scher rats with respect to 6 months-old ones. The cerebral levels of sphing omyelin and cholesterol were found to be significantly increased in aged ra ts, whereas the amount of phosphatidylcholine, phosphatidylethanolamine, ph osphatidylserine, phosphatidylinositol, and phosphatidic acid appear to be unaffected by aging. Long-term feeding with acetyl-L-carnitine was able to reduce the age-dependent increase of both sphingomyelin and cholesterol cer ebral levels with no effect on the other measured phospholipids. These find ings shown that changes in membrane lipid metabolism and/or composition rep resent one of the alterations occurring in rat brain with aging, and that l ong-term feeding with acetyl-l-carnitine can be useful in normalizing these age-dependent disturbances.