Reduced brain N-acetyl-aspartate in frontal lobes suggests neuronal loss in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

International audience; Abstract: We performed proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (IH-MRS) in three patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) to evaluate the distribution and extent of cortical neuronal damage as demonstrated by decreased N-acetyl-aspartate (NAA) levels. We examined primary motor (precentral gyrus) and parietal neocortical (superior parietal gyrus) regions. ALS was defined with lower and upper motor neuron signs. Compared with matched healthy controls, ALS patients had a significant decrease in NAA levels in the primary motor cortex (p<0.001) compared with parietal regions and homologous regions in healthy controls. Two clinical applications can be extracted: fi…