Ken E. Sakaie1,
Masaya Takahashi2, Koji Sagiyama2, Bharath Atthe1,
Osamu Togao2, Ivan E. Dimitrov3, Gina Remington4,
Teresa Frohman4, Elliot Frohman4, Robert Fox5
1Imaging
Institute, The Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH, United States; 2Advanced
Imaging Research Center, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, United
States; 3Philips Medical Systems, Highland Heights, OH, United
States; 4Neurology and Neuro-therapeutics, UT Southwestern Medical
Center, Dallas, TX, United States; 5Mellen Center, The Cleveland
Clinic, Cleveland, OH, United States
This work tests the hypothesis that diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) detects injury to the medial longitudinal fasciculus (MLF) in MS patients with internuclear ophthalmoparesis (INO). DTI provides quantitative measures of tissue injury while injury to the MLF in MS provokes well-characterized ocular motor disorder, INO. The tight relationship between the MLF and ocular motor function provides a unique opportunity to refine our capabilities to couple a disease-related pathophysiologic signature with advanced imaging metrics of CNS tissue injury. However, as the MLF is a small pathway, it is unclear if DTI has sufficient sensitivity to detect injury associated with INO.