Franklyn Arron Howe1, Nidhi Sofat2, Thomas Richard Barrick1
1Clinical Sciences, St George's, University of London, London, United Kingdom; 2Biomedical Sciences, St George's, University of London, London, United Kingdom
Metabolite levels were quantified by 1H MRS in parietal and frontal brain regions of lupus patients and correlated with fractional anisotropy (FA) and median diffusivity determined by Diffusion Tensor Imaging in the same voxels. We investigated whether: a) neuronal damage represented by reductions in FA would correlate with reduced NAA; b) inflammatory processes would lead to a correlation of increased mI with ESR; c) global disease processes occur that lead to correlation of metabolite changes in frontal and parietal regions.