• Shawna Abel, Irene Vavasour, Lisa Eunyoung Lee, Poljanka Johnson, Nathalie Ackermans, Jillian Chan, Adam Dvorak, Alice Schabas, Vanessa Wiggermann, Roger Tam, Annie J Kuan, Sarah A Morrow, Jeffrey Wilken, ... more Cornelia Laule, Alexander Rauscher, Virender Bhan, Ana-Luiza Sayao, Virginia Devonshire, David Kb Li, Robert Carruthers, Anthony Traboulsee, and Shannon H Kolind. less
• Department of Medicine (Neurology), University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
• J Neuroimaging. 2020 Mar 1; 30 (2): 205-211.

Background And PurposeCognitive impairment is a core symptom in multiple sclerosis (MS). Damage to normal appearing white matter (NAWM) is likely involved. We sought to determine if greater myelin heterogeneity in NAWM is associated with decreased cognitive performance in MS.MethodsA total of 27 participants with MS and 13 controls matched for age, sex, and education underwent myelin water imaging (MWI) from which the myelin water fraction (MWF) was calculated. Corpus callosum, superior longitudinal fasciculus, and cingulum were chosen as regions of interest (ROIs) a priori based on their involvement in MS-related cognitive impairment. Cognitive performance was assessed using the Symbol Digit Modalities Test (SDMT). Pearson ́s product moment correlations were performed to assess relationships between cognitive performance and myelin heterogeneity (variance of MWF within an ROI).ResultsIn MS, myelin heterogeneity in all three ROIs was significantly associated with performance on the SDMT. These correlations ranged from moderate (r = -.561) to moderately strong (r = -.654) and were highly significant (P values ranged from .001 to .0002). Conversely, myelin heterogeneity was not associated with SDMT performance in controls in any ROI (P > .108).ConclusionIncreased myelin heterogeneity in NAWM is associated with decreased cognitive processing speed performance in MS.© 2019 by the American Society of Neuroimaging.

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