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TORONTO — Cognitive impairment in childhood-onset systemic lupus erythematosus can be identified with functional magnetic resonance imaging, Svetlana Lvovich, D.O., reported in a poster at the annual meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies.
The pilot study included 10 patients with SLE, 5 of whom had cognitive impairment (CI) and 5 of whom did not. Patients completed three tasks during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) designed to evaluate attention, working memory, and language processing. “They need to recruit more neurons to do the task,” said Dr. Lvovich in an interview.
The preferred method for diagnosing CI in SLE patients is neuropsychiatric testing, which is time consuming and requires extensive training, said Dr. Lvovich of the Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. In contrast, fMRI is quick and easy to perform.
There also were subtle fMRI differences seen between SLE patients with normal cognition, compared with healthy controls, “suggesting that SLE-specific processes contribute to CI rather than the long-term use of steroids,” she noted. “However, to determine this, we will need to look at patients who are on steroids but don't have SLE.”
“We think fMRI may be useful to investigate and identify cortical roots of cognitive impairment in children with SLE,” she concluded.
TORONTO — Cognitive impairment in childhood-onset systemic lupus erythematosus can be identified with functional magnetic resonance imaging, Svetlana Lvovich, D.O., reported in a poster at the annual meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies.
The pilot study included 10 patients with SLE, 5 of whom had cognitive impairment (CI) and 5 of whom did not. Patients completed three tasks during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) designed to evaluate attention, working memory, and language processing. “They need to recruit more neurons to do the task,” said Dr. Lvovich in an interview.
The preferred method for diagnosing CI in SLE patients is neuropsychiatric testing, which is time consuming and requires extensive training, said Dr. Lvovich of the Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. In contrast, fMRI is quick and easy to perform.
There also were subtle fMRI differences seen between SLE patients with normal cognition, compared with healthy controls, “suggesting that SLE-specific processes contribute to CI rather than the long-term use of steroids,” she noted. “However, to determine this, we will need to look at patients who are on steroids but don't have SLE.”
“We think fMRI may be useful to investigate and identify cortical roots of cognitive impairment in children with SLE,” she concluded.
TORONTO — Cognitive impairment in childhood-onset systemic lupus erythematosus can be identified with functional magnetic resonance imaging, Svetlana Lvovich, D.O., reported in a poster at the annual meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies.
The pilot study included 10 patients with SLE, 5 of whom had cognitive impairment (CI) and 5 of whom did not. Patients completed three tasks during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) designed to evaluate attention, working memory, and language processing. “They need to recruit more neurons to do the task,” said Dr. Lvovich in an interview.
The preferred method for diagnosing CI in SLE patients is neuropsychiatric testing, which is time consuming and requires extensive training, said Dr. Lvovich of the Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. In contrast, fMRI is quick and easy to perform.
There also were subtle fMRI differences seen between SLE patients with normal cognition, compared with healthy controls, “suggesting that SLE-specific processes contribute to CI rather than the long-term use of steroids,” she noted. “However, to determine this, we will need to look at patients who are on steroids but don't have SLE.”
“We think fMRI may be useful to investigate and identify cortical roots of cognitive impairment in children with SLE,” she concluded.