• Ashley Y Ma, Rita C Vitorino, Seyed-Parsa Hojjat, Alannah D Mulholland, Liying Zhang, Liesly Lee, Timothy J Carroll, Charles G Cantrell, Chase R Figley, and Richard I Aviv.
• Department of Physical Sciences, Sunnybrook Research Institute, Toronto, ON, Canada.
• Mult. Scler. 2017 Dec 1; 23 (14): 1884-1892.

BackgroundRecent studies utilizing perfusion as a surrogate of cortical integrity show promise for overall cognition, but the association between white matter (WM) damage and gray matter (GM) integrity in specific functional networks is not previously studied.ObjectiveTo investigate the relationship between WM fiber integrity and GM node perfusion within six functional networks of relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS) and secondary progressive multiple sclerosis (SPMS) patients.MethodsMagnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and neurocognitive testing were performed on 19 healthy controls (HC), 39 RRMS, and 45 SPMS patients. WM damage extent and severity were quantified with T2-hyper/T1-hypointense (T2h/T1h) lesion volume and degree of perfusion reduction in lesional and normal-appearing white matter (NAWM), respectively. A two-step linear regression corrected for confounders was employed.ResultsCognitive impairment was present in 20/39 (51%) RRMS and 25/45 (53%) SPMS patients. GM node perfusion was associated with WM fiber damage severity (WM hypoperfusion) within each network-including both NAWM ( R2 = 0.67-0.89, p < 0.0001) and T2h ( R2 = 0.39-0.62, p < 0.0001) WM regions-but was not significantly associated ( p > 0.01) with WM fiber damage extent (i.e. T2h/T1h lesion volumes).ConclusionOverall, GM node perfusion was associated with severity rather than extent of WM network damage, supporting a primary etiology of GM hypoperfusion.

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