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Abstract #1983

Transverse Relaxation Measurements of Brain Metabolites in Gulf War Illness

Audrey Jennifer Chang1, Sergey Cheshkov1,2, Richard Briggs1,2, Robert Haley2

1Radiology, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, United States; 2Internal Medicine, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, United States


Relaxation times are often an assumed value in spectroscopy studies, despite their potential diagnostic value and usefulness in quantifying metabolite concentrations. The purpose of this study was to measure the transverse (T2) relaxation times of the major brain metabolites (NAA, Crt, and Chot) in left and right basal ganglia of veterans with Gulf War Illness (GWI) and age-matched veteran controls to determine if the T2 values differ between ill veterans and controls or among the three syndrome variants of GWI.