Raveena Dhaliwal1,2,3, Daniel J. Korchinski1,2,3, Samuel K. Jensen1,2, V. Wee Yong1,2, and Jeff F. Dunn1,2,3
1Neuroscience, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada, 2Hotchkiss Brain Institute, Calgary, AB, Canada, 3Radiology, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada
Multiple Sclerosis requires treatments that stimulate
remyelination and reduce demyelination. Currently, both T1 and the quantitative
magnetization transfer parameter bound pool fraction (f) have been found to correlate
strongly with myelin content but little is known about the sensitivity of these
techniques at different signal to noise ratios. This work demonstrates that T1
is highly sensitive to changes in myelin content but f can miss significant
differences in tissue myelin content at a standard signal to noise. MS treatments should
be developed using a multi-modal approach that combines techniques with high
sensitivity (T1) and those that have high specificity (f).
