Manganese intoxificaton is a well-known cause of Parkinson's like syndrome.

We describe a 46-year-old man who had been occupationally exposed to manganese and report the case with hydrogen magnetic resonance spectroscopy (¹H MRS). Ratios of N-acetyl-aspartate (NAA) to creatine were significantly reduced in basal ganglia regions compared to normal subjects. The level of NAA was decreased in basal ganglia regions may indicate neuronal dysfunction. ¹H MRS can provide detailed information of brain damage, therefore the ¹H MRS is very useful in diagnosis of manganese intoxification.

Objective: To compare manganese contents in the hair between children with cerebral palsy and healthy children, and to find out the relations with it and each of clinical types, severity, topography, seizure status, parents status, and family status in children with cerebral palsy.

Method: Manganese contents in hair were analysed for 62 children with cerebral palsy who were in a institution for severe disabled children and 22 healthy children. Hair was collected about 2 grams from occipital scalp of each subject. Atomic Absorption Electrophotometer was used for the analysis of manganese.

Results: The mean values of manganese in the hair differed significantly between children with cerebral palsy (0.3970⁑0.4899) and control (0.0920⁑0.0640) (p＜0.05). Especially, athetoid group (0.5607⁑0.6520 ppm), diplegic group (0.7123⁑0.6841 ppm), orphan (0.4985⁑0.5646 ppm), and children without family (0.4670⁑0.5456 ppm) showed significantly higher manganese contents than control (p＜0.05). But there were no significant differences of manganese contents between each distribution of clinical type, severity, topography, seizure status, parent status, and family status among children with cerebral palsy.

Conclusion: Suggested reasons of high manganese content in athetoid and diplegic cerebral palsy, and patients without parents or family: 1) manganese are more collected in basal ganglia, 2) diplegic cerebral palsy, orphan, and children without family may have high chances to be exposed to high manganese materials (food, heavy metals, and dust) because of better upper extremity function and a kind of pica. The further evaluation study including the analysis of manganese contents in basal ganglia should be continued to prove our hypotheses.