Background: Axonal damage has been observed in normal-appearing white matter (NAWM) for patients with multiple sclerosis (MS).
Objectives: To investigate changes in brain metabolite ratios in a region of normal-appearing corpus callosum (CC) for patients with MS and to test its relationship to changes in other regions of NAWM.
Design and methods: Data were collected from 24 patients with MS and 15 control subjects. Two-dimensional proton magnetic resonance spectroscopic imaging was performed centered at the CC. Regions of interest from normal-appearing CC were manually segmented using anatomical images. The NAWM outside the CC region was segmented based on the signal intensity in T1- and T2-weighted images.
Results: The N-acetylaspartate-creatine-phosphocreatine ratio was lower in both regions for patients with secondary progressive MS compared with the controls; the N-acetylaspartate-creatine-phosphocreatine was lower only in the normal-appearing CC region for patients with relapsing-remitting MS (P<.001) compared with the controls. The ratio of choline-containing compound compared with the creatine-phosphocreatine ratio was also lower in the region of normal-appearing CC for patients with relapsing-remitting MS (P =.003) compared with the controls. There was a correlation between the N-acetylaspartate-creatine-phosphocreatine ratio in the normal-appearing CC and T1 lesions (r = -0.53, P =.01) for all patients.
Conclusions: The CC was a more sensitive location for depicting axonal injury than other regions of NAWM. A correlation between the reduction of the N-acetylaspartate-creatine-phosphocreatine ratio in the normal-appearing CC and the T1 lesions may suggest that transection of axons in lesions may cause distant axonal damage and/or dysfunction that are expressed and more sensitively detectable in the CC.