Multiple sclerosis and related disorders
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Mult Scler Relat Disord · Mar 2015
Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter StudyRegional gray matter atrophy in relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis: baseline analysis of multi-center data.
Regional gray matter (GM) atrophy in multiple sclerosis (MS) at disease onset and its temporal variation can provide objective information regarding disease evolution. An automated pipeline for estimating atrophy of various GM structures was developed using tensor based morphometry (TBM) and implemented on a multi-center sub-cohort of 1008 relapsing remitting MS (RRMS) patients enrolled in a Phase 3 clinical trial. Four hundred age and gender matched healthy controls were used for comparison. ⋯ Thalamic atrophy observed in MS patients compared to healthy controls remained consistent within subgroups based on gender and scanner field strength. Weak correlations between thalamic volume and EDSS (r=-0.133; p<0.001) and DD (r=-0.098; p=0.003) were observed. Of all the structures, thalamic volume moderately correlated with T2 LL (r=-0.492; P-value<0.001), T1 LL (r=-0.473; P-value<0.001) and nCSF (r=-0.367; P-value<0.001).
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Mult Scler Relat Disord · Mar 2015
Subclinical MRI disease activity influences cognitive performance in MS patients.
The pathological mechanisms underlying cognitive dysfunction in multiple sclerosis (MS) are not yet fully understood and, in addition to demyelinating lesions and gray-matter atrophy, subclinical disease activity may play a role. ⋯ Cognitive dysfunction was especially related to high burden of cortical lesions and subclinical disease activity. Cognitive studies in MS should look over subclinical disease activity as a potential contributor to cognitive impairment.