Intracellular alterations, and in particular changes in glia, as evidenced by increase in the average diffusivities of total choline and total creatine, correlate with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) activity. This according to a study of 13 patients with SLE with past neuropsychiatric systemic lupus erythematosus (NPSLE), 16 patients with SLE without past NPSLE, and 19 healthy controls. Researchers found:

• In patients with systemic lupus erythematosus with past NPSLE, significantly higher diffusion tensor imaging mean and radial diffusivities were accompanied by a significantly higher intracellular diffusion of total creatine (0.202 ± 0.032 μm2/ms) and total choline (0.142 ± 0.031 μm2/ms) compared to healthy controls (0.171 ± 0.024 μm2/ms, 0.124 ± 0.018 μm2/ms, respectively).

• Total N-acetylaspartate, total creatine, and total choline diffusion values from all patients with SLE correlated positively with SLE disease activity index score.

Citation: Ercan E, Magro-Checa C, Valabregue R, et al. Glial and axonal changes in systemic lupus erythematosus measured with diffusion of intracellular metabolites. [Published online ahead of print March 11, 2016]. Brain. doi:10.1093/brain/aww031.