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Abstract #3606

MRI measurement of Blood-Brain Barrier Permeability in ME/CFS with and without PASC

Sheryl Liu1, Songsen Wang2,3, Dengrong Jiang4, Hanzhang Lu4, Benjamin Natelson2, and Xiang Xu2
1Livingston High School, Livingston, NJ, United States, 2Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, United States, 3New York University, New York, NY, United States, 4Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, United States

Synopsis

Keywords: Neuroinflammation, Perfusion, ME/CFS, COVID19, Permeability, BBB

Motivation: It has been hypothesized that increases in blood-brain barrier (BBB) permeability in patients with ME/CFS lead to many of the symptoms experienced by these patients. Assessing BBB permeability across PASC ME/CFS, classic non-PASC ME/CFS, and healthy individuals could validate this hypothesis and deepen our understanding of ME/CFS pathophysiology.

Goal(s): To non-invasively measure BBB permeability to water in the three groups.

Approach: We applied water-extraction-with-phase-contrast-arterial-spin-tagging (WEPCAST) MRI to measure BBB permeability.

Results: No significant differences in CBF or E were observed between the groups, PS was significantly higher in the classic non-PASC ME/CFS group compared to both the PASC ME/CFS and control groups.

Impact: In this pilot study, we found increased BBB permeability in the non-PASC ME/CFS group compared to the PASC ME/CFS and control groups, providing preliminary imaging evidence of neuroinflammation in ME/CFS. This finding can deepen our understanding of ME/CFS pathophysiology.

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