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Abstract #1900

Evidence of a topographical and inflammatory brain response in Human T Lymphotropic Virus type-1-associated myelopathy (HAM)

Courtney A Bishop 1,2 , Qi Guo 3 , Rahul Dimber 1 , Rexford D Newbould 1,2 , Roger N Gunn 1,2 , Eugenii A Rabiner 1,3 , and Graham P Taylor 4

1 Imanova Centre for Imaging Sciences, London, United Kingdom, 2 Department of Medicine, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom, 3 King's College London, London, United Kingdom, 4 St Mary's Hospital, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, London, United Kingdom

HTLV1-associated myelopathy (HAM) is a chronic, debilitating neuro-inflammatory disease that may be associated with neuro-cognitive defects in spite of being a peripheral infection. In this study, we used VBM and DTI to attempt to differentiate six HAM patients (with high viral load but varying disease burden) from healthy controls, in order to probe CNS changes before the development of cognitive defects. Both VBM and DTI analysis identified the thalamus as correlated to disease burden, which was reinforced by [11C]PBR28 PET identifying the thalamus as an area of inflammation in HAM patients.

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