Motor cortex metabolite alterations in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis assessed in vivo using edited and non-edited magnetic resonance spectroscopy.

Motor cortex metabolite alterations in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis assessed in vivo using edited and non-edited magnetic resonance spectroscopy. Brain Res. 2019 Apr 16;: Authors: Weerasekera A, Peeters R, Sima D, Dresselaers T, Sunaert S, De Vocht J, Claeys K, Van Huffel S, Van Damme P, Himmelreich U Abstract Previous MRI and proton spectroscopy (1H-MRS) studies have revealed impaired neuronal integrity and altered neurometabolite concentrations in the motor cortex of patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Here, we aim to use MRI with conventional and novel MRS sequences to further investigate neurometabolic changes in the motor cortex of ALS patients and their relation to clinical parameters. We utilized the novel HERMES (Hadamard Encoding and Reconstruction of MEGA-Edited Spectroscopy) MRS sequence to simultaneously quantify the inhibitory neurotransmitter GABA and antioxidant glutathione in ALS patients (n=7) and healthy controls (n=7). In addition, we have also quantified other MRS observable neurometabolites using a conventional point-resolved MR spectroscopy (PRESS) sequence in ALS patients (n=20) and healthy controls (n=20). We observed a trend towards decreasing glutathione concentrations in the motor cortex of ALS patients (p = 0.0842). In addition, we detected a 11% decrease in N-acetylaspartate (NAA) (p = 0.025), a 15% increase in glutamate + glutamine (Glx) (p = 0.0084) and a 21% increase in myo-inositol (mI...
Source: Brain Research - Category: Neurology Authors: Tags: Brain Res Source Type: research