Reanalysis of multislice ¹h MRSI in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

The goal of this work was to reexamine previously published (1) brain spectroscopy data of abnormal metabolite ratios in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Toward this goal, ¹H MR spectroscopic imaging data from 10 ALS and nine control subjects were reanalyzed using improved data analysis techniques, including automated curve fitting and tissue-volume correction. In the motor cortex of ALS, N-acetyl aspartate (NAA) was 23% (P = 0.004) lower than in controls, and in the posterior internal capsule of ALS choline compounds (Cho) were 20% (P = 0.02) higher. This demonstrates that the metabolite ratio changes in ALS were due to NAA loss in the motor cortex (as expected) and Cho increase in the posterior internal capsule (not expected).