No evidence of microbleeds in ALS patients at 7 Tesla MRI

There have been several reports about disruption of the blood-spinal cord barrier (BSCB) and blood-brain barrier (BBB) in SOD1 mutant mice. Pathologically, microbleeds and hemosiderine deposits were found. We investigated patients with ALS for the occurrence of cerebral microbleeds with 7 Tesla MRI. Twelve patients with ALS and 12 age-and sex-matched healthy controls were studied. We performed T2*-weighed imaging which enables whole-brain in vivo detection of cerebral microbleeds and hemosiderin deposits in humans. No microbleeds were found in patients with ALS.