Tract-wise microstructural analysis informs on current and future disability in early multiple sclerosis.

ABSTRACT:

Objectives

Microstructural characterization of patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) has been shown to correlate better with disability compared to conventional radiological biomarkers. Quantitative MRI provides effective means to characterize microstructural brain tissue changes both in lesions and normal-appearing brain tissue. However, the impact of the location of microstructural alterations in terms of neuronal pathways has not been thoroughly explored so far. Here, we study the extent and the location of tissue changes probed using quantitative MRI along white matter (WM) tracts extracted from a connectivity atlas.

Methods

We quantified voxel-wise T1 tissue alterations compared to normative values in a cohort of 99 MS patients. For each WM tract, we extracted metrics r

SUBMITTER: Ravano V 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10827809 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature