• Deborah Pareto, Jaume Sastre-Garriga, Juli Alonso, Ingrid Galán, Maria Jesus Arévalo, Marta Renom, Xavier Montalban, and Àlex Rovira.
• Section of Neuroradiology, Department of Radiology, University Hospital Vall d'Hebron, Barcelona, Spain.
• J Neuroimaging. 2018 May 1; 28 (3): 313-319.

Background And PurposeThe goal of this study was to assess changes in the resting-state networks (RSNs) of patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) after a cognitive rehabilitation program (CRP), by retrospectively analyzing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies using the classical block design.MethodsFifteen patients with MS (2 primary progressive, 3 relapsing-remitting, 10 secondary progressive) were scanned before and after the CRP on a 1.5T MRI scanner. In addition, patients underwent pre- and post-CRP neuropsychological assessment using a battery of standardized tests. Five healthy individuals were scanned at the same time points to confirm the test-retest reliability of the imaging technique. For each study, the individual fMRI blocks of rest were merged to produce a "pseudo"-resting-state (pseudo-RS) of 3 minutes duration. RS studies were analyzed with the MELODIC toolbox. A dual regression analysis was applied to estimate the longitudinal changes in RSNs of patients and test controls relative to a set of predefined RSNs used as templates.ResultsIn healthy individuals, there were no significant differences in RSN results between the two time points studied. In the group of patients with MS, significant differences were found post-CRP in the visual medial, cerebellar, auditory, and frontal-executive RSNs. Furthermore, synchronization increases in the frontal-executive RSN were associated with cognitive improvement on neuropsychological testing.ConclusionsResults obtained using a pseudo-RS approach to analyze data from block-design fMRI studies suggest that a CRP of 5 weeks' duration induces measurable changes in specific RSNs of patients with MS.Copyright © 2018 by the American Society of Neuroimaging.

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