Madison Area Lyme Support Group

BACKGROUND:

We hypothesized that since Borrelia burgdorferi causes systemic inflammation and infects the brain, it may lead to alterations in cerebral metabolism, as measured by ¹H-magnetic resonance spectroscopy (¹H-MRS). The purpose of our study was to determine whether ¹H-MRS could detect brain metabolite alterations in patients with early Lyme neuroborreliosis (LNB) in normal-appearing brain tissue on the conventional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

METHODS:

Twenty-six patients diagnosed with early LNB and twenty-six healthy volunteers as a control group have been involved in the study. All of them underwent routine MRI protocol using 3.0-T MRI scanner. ¹H-MRS examinations were performed with repetition time (TR) = 2000 ms, and echo time (TE) = 135 ms. Single voxels were positioned in the anterior and posterior parts of the right and left frontal lobes.

RESULTS:

We found a statistically significant decrease of the N-acetylaspartate/creatine ratio within the anterior part of the right and left frontal lobes (p ≤ 0.001 and p = 0.001 respectively) and in the posterior part of the right and left frontal lobes (p ≤ 0.001 and 0.031) in the patients with LNB.

CONCLUSION:

A significant reduction in NAA/Cr ratio in comparison with the controls suggests the presence of diffuse neuronal loss in patients with early LNB.

____________________

For more:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2019/01/30/characterization-of-brain-dysfunction-induced-by-bacterial-lipopeptides-that-alter-neuronal-activity-network-in-rodent-brains/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/08/20/tick-borne-diseases-causing-autonomic-dysfunction/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2019/05/21/chronic-inflammatory-demyelinating-polyneuropathy-as-an-autoimmune-disease-but-associated-with-bartonella-mycoplasma-viruses/