Altered Brain Perfusion and Tissue Injury in Early Multiple Sclerosis Assessed by ASL and MTR Statistical Mapping Analyses

Wafaa Zaaraoui¹, Franoise Reuter¹, Mathias Lemaire¹, Audrey Rico¹, Anthony Faivre¹, Virginie Callot¹, Irina Malikova¹, Elisabeth Soulier¹, Sylviane Confort-Gouny¹, Patrick J. Cozzone¹, Jean Pelletier¹, Bertrand Audoin¹, Jean-Philippe Ranjeva¹

Recent studies have evidenced the crucial role of perfusion alteration in multiple sclerosis (MS). However, little is known about the relationships between hemodynamical parameters and local tissue damage encountered at all stages of the disease, and especially at the early phase. To investigate the putative relationships between perfusion alterations and structural local white matter and grey matter impairments in early MS, we designed a MR protocol combining statistical mapping analyses of arterial spin labeling (ASL) data and magnetization transfer ratio (MTR) data obtained in 12 patients with clinically isolated syndromes (CIS) and 12 matched controls.