Li An1, Larry L. Latour1, Krishna A. Dani2, Jun Shen3, Steven Warach1
1National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA; 2University Medical Unit, Glasgow Royal Infirmary, Glasgow, UK; 3National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA
In this study, a J-difference spectroscopy technique was used to investigate the changes in brain glutathione (GSH) occurring after stroke, with respect to changes in other commonly measured metabolites: choline, creatine/phosphocreatine, N-acetyl-aspartate, and lactate. The ratio between the GSH levels in lesion and control regions was computed and represented by rGSH. A correlation between rGSH and lactate level in the lesion was found to be significant at 0.05 level with Pearsons correlation coefficient r = 0.59 and p = 0.042 (two-tailed). This is consistent with findings from clinical studies where blood GSH levels were found to be increased in the first 48 hours post ictus.