Hanneke E. Hulst1, Stefan D. Roosendaal1,
Menno M. Schoonheim1, Lizanne J. Schweren1, Ysbrand D.
van der Werf2, Chris H. Polman3, Frederik Barkhof1,
Jeroen J. Geurts1,4
1Radiology, VU University Medical
Center, Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Netherlands; 2Clinical
Neurophysiology, VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, Noord-Holland,
Netherlands; 3Neurology, VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam,
Noord-Holland, Netherlands; 4Pathology, VU University Medical
Center , Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Netherlands
Cognitive
decline is frequently seen in multiple sclerosis (MS). This study
investigates the changes in hippocampal activation patterns in MS. Functional
MRI, an encoding- and retrieval paradigm, was acquired of 24 cognitively
preserved (CP) and 10 cognitively impaired (CI) MS patients and 15 healthy
controls (HC). Where CP patients only showed increased brain activation in
the dorsal streams of the memory system, CI patients showed reduced brain
activation in the (para)hippocampal areas and the ventral stream of the
memory system. Our findings indicate that functional reorganization takes
place early in the disease course and is a finite phenomenon in MS.