Absence of N-acetylaspartate in the human brain:: Impact on neurospectroscopy?

N-acetylaspartate (NAA) contributes to the most prominent signal in proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (H-1-MRS) of the adult human brain. We report the absence of NAA in the brain of a 3-year-old child with neurodevelopmental retardation and moderately delayed myelination. Since normal concentration of NAA in body fluids is hardly detectable, H-1-MRS is a noninvasive technique for identifying neurometabolic diseases with absent NAA. This report puts NAA as a neuronal marker to question.