Abstract
There have been several reports about disruption of the blood-spinal cord barrier (BSCB) and blood-brain barrier (BBB) in SOD1 mutant mice. Pathologically, microbleeds and hemosiderine deposits were found. We investigated patients with ALS for the occurrence of cerebral microbleeds with 7 Tesla MRI. Twelve patients with ALS and 12 age- and sex-matched healthy controls were studied. We performed T2*-weighed imaging which enables whole-brain in vivo detection of cerebral microbleeds and hemosiderin deposits in humans. No microbleeds were found in patients with ALS.
Acknowledgements
This study was sponsored by The Netherlands ALS Foundation.
Declaration of interest: F. Visser has a partial employment with a commercial organization (Philips Healthcare, Best, The Netherlands), but the other authors report no disclosures. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.