Whole-Brain Proton MRSI Data Analysis using a Corticospinal Tract Atlas in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis

Varan Govind¹, Khema R. Sharma², Sulaiman Sheriff¹, Gaurav Saigal¹, Andrew A. Maudsley¹

Brain metabolite levels in the motor cortex and corticospinal tracts in earlier studies were calculated using manually drawn regions-of-interest (ROI) in those structures. Such an ROI-based data analysis approach comes with subjectivity in drawing ROIs that result in higher data variability. In this study, a 3D brain white matter CST atlas was used to analyze whole-brain MRSI data, and to quantify metabolites, N-acetyl aspartate (NAA), creatine (Cr) and choline (Cho) in the left- and right whole-CSTs of subjects with ALS and controls.