Sergey Cheshkov1,2, Audrey Chang2,
Hyeonman Baek1,2, Jeffrey Spence3, Sandeep Kumar Ganji2,
Evelyn Babcock2, Richard Wallace Briggs2,4, Robert W.
Haley4
1Advanced Imaging Research
Center, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, United States; 2Radiology,
UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, United States; 3Clinical
Sciences, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, United States; 4Internal
Medicine, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, United States
To determine the generality of lowered NAA/Cr previously measured at 1.5T in bilateral basal ganglia of Gulf War illness patients compared to healthy controls from a single battalion, 1H MRS at 3T of bilateral basal ganglia of control veterans and three illness variants (Syndromes 1, 2, 3) in a subset of subjects from a statistically representative national sample of 8,020 Gulf War veterans was performed. Consistent with previous studies, Syndrome 2 had significantly lower NAA/Cr in left basal ganglia than controls. Syndrome 3 had significantly lower Cho/Cr and significantly shorter Cho T2 in left basal ganglia than controls.