Study Impact/Highlights
- •To our knowledge, this is the first study to show that mildly disabled men with multiple sclerosis have significantly less brain activity in the thalamus and cerebellum during walking compared with women with multiple sclerosis, which may be unique to this patient population.
- •The suggestion that men may possess inherent, preclinical vulnerability to the neuropathologic processes of multiple sclerosis is not supported by the actual results, but it deserves to be tested in a larger sample of healthy subjects.
- •This study provides the feasibility and utility of positron emission tomography with fluorine-18-labeled deoxyglucose aimed at detecting brain region glucose uptake and activity during a physical performance task.
Abstract
Objective
To determine if sex differences in glucose uptake, a marker of brain activity, are
present in brain regions that facilitate walking performance in persons with multiple
sclerosis (MS).
Design
Cross-sectional, observational pilot.
Setting
University laboratory.
Participants
Positron emission tomography with fluorine-18-labeled deoxyglucose (FDG) was performed
on persons with MS and healthy controls (4 men and 4 women per group; N=16) after
a 15-minute walking test.
Interventions
Not applicable.
Main Outcome Measure
Brain activity was quantified as the mean standardized uptake value (SUV).
Results
The mean SUV was significantly lower in the thalamus (P=.029) and cerebellum (P=.029) for men with MS compared with women with MS, but not for the prefrontal (P=.057) or frontal (P=.057) cortices. Similar nonsignificant trends were found for healthy controls. No
mean SUV group × sex interaction effects were found between the MS and healthy control
groups (all P>.05).
Conclusions
To our knowledge, this is the first study of brain activity sex differences based
on FDG uptake in persons with MS during walking. Significantly less FDG uptake in
the thalamus and cerebellum brain regions important for walking performance was found
in men with MS compared with women with MS; however, these comparisons were not significantly
different in the healthy control group. No differences in FDG uptake were found between
the MS and healthy control groups in any of the brain regions examined. Results from
this study provide pilot data for larger studies aimed at identifying underlying mechanisms
responsible for accelerated disability in men with MS.
Keywords
List of abbreviations:
FDG (fluorine-18-labeled deoxyglucose), MS (multiple sclerosis), PET (positron emission tomography), SUV (standardized uptake value)To read this article in full you will need to make a payment
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: October 05, 2015
Footnotes
Supported by the National Multiple Sclerosis Society (grant no. PP1907) and in part by the National Institutes of Health/National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences Colorado Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute (grant no. UL1 TR000154). North American Research Consortium on Multiple Sclerosis is supported in part by the Consortium of Multiple Sclerosis Centers (CMSC) and the CMSC Foundation.
Disclosures: none.
Identification
Copyright
© 2016 American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
