In a study using specialized imaging techniques, Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers report distinctive changes in the “white matter” and other brain tissue physiology of those with post-treatment Lyme disease, a condition affecting 10% to 20% of the nearly half a million Americans who contract Lyme disease annually.
The study’s findings, published October 26 in the journal PLOS ONE, substantiate and help validate that memory, and other cognitive difficulties experienced long-term by individuals with post-treatment Lyme disease, are linked to functional and structural changes in the brain.
Lyme disease, whose early symptoms may include a characteristic rash, flu-like aches and fever, joint pain, and fatigue, is treated using a rigorous course of antibiotics, which usually clears the illness.
However, in those considered long-haul patients for whom Lyme symptoms continue after completion of antibiotics, the condition is a chronic illness that can be marked by fatigue, muscular pain, insomnia, depression and cognitive difficulties, such as trouble with concentration and memory. Such individuals generally have no obvious clinical or laboratory evidence of ongoing issues.
In a bid to identify what they suspect are long-term changes in brain function that may be causing certain persistent Lyme disease symptoms, researchers from Johns Hopkins Medicine’s departments of neurology and psychiatry and behavioral sciences, in collaboration with the Lyme Disease Research Center, used functional MRI (fMRI) scans of the brain, a technology that detects changes in brain blood flow. These scans allow investigators to track changes in the brain in real time.
“Objective biologic measures of post-treatment Lyme symptoms typically can’t be identified using regular MRIs, CT scans, or blood tests,” says researcher John Aucott, M.D., director of the Johns Hopkins Lyme Disease Clinical Research Center and associate professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. “We needed to expand our methods of evaluation,” he adds.
Source: Read Full Article