Abstract #3419

Tonon C, Testa C, Pierangeli G, Capellari S, Parchi P, Barbiroli B, Montagna P, Lodi R, Cortelli P, Manners D

Sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (sCJD) is the most commonly occurring form of prion diseases, a group of rare, fatal neurodegenerative disorders associated with the accumulation of mis-folded PrP protein. Four patients with sCJD were studied by diffusion-weighted imaging and proton spectroscopy, and results compared with post mortem histology in four brain areas. The presence of gliosis and neuronal loss was found to be associated with a relative reduction in N-acetyl aspartate (NAA) and an increase in apparent diffusion coefficient, while spongiosis was linked to a reduction in ADC but not in NAA.