Paolo Preziosa1, Maria A. Rocca1, Sarlota Mesaros2, Elisabetta Pagani1, Tatjana Stosic-Opincal3, Domenico Caputo4, Jelena Drulovic2, Giancarlo Comi5, Massimo Filippi<s
1Neuroimaging Research Unit, Institute of Experimental Neurology, San Raffaele Scientific Institute and Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, Milan, Italy, Italy; 2Clinic of Neurology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Yugoslavia; 3Clinic of Radiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Yugoslavia; 4Department of Neurology, IRCCS Fondazione Don Gnocchi, Milan, Italy; 5Department of Neurology, San Raffaele Scientific Institute and Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, Milan, Italy, Italy
We investigated whether voxel-wise analyses to metrics from diffusion tensor (DT) MRI tractography and T2 lesions of the corticospinal tract (CST) and sensitive thalamocortical projections (sTCP) contribute to explain global clinical disability and impairment in specific functional systems in multiple sclerosis (MS) patients. Compared to healthy controls, MS patients showed widespread diffusivity abnormalities along the tracts investigated. Compared to unimpaired patients, impaired patients had higher diffusivity abnormalities and higher probability of having T2 lesions in the CTSs and sTCPs, thus suggesting that clinical impairment in MS is associated with both focal damage and diffuse normal appearing white matter tract injury.