Longitudinal evaluation of cerebral and spinal cord damage in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

To evaluate MRI-based parameters as biomarkers of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) progression.

Methods

Twenty-seven patients and 27 controls performed two clinical and MRI acquisitions 8 months apart. ALSFRS-R scale was used to quantify disease severity at both time points. Multimodal analyses of MRI included cortical thickness measurements (FreeSurfer software), analysis of white matter integrity using diffusion-tensor imaging (tract-based spatial statistics-TBSS) and measurement of cervical spinal cord cross-sectional area (SpineSeg software). All analyses were corrected for multiple comparisons. The standardized response mean (SRM = mean score change / standard deviation of score change) was calculated for all methods herein employed and used for comparison

SUBMITTER: de Albuquerque M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5294732 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature