Abstract #0217

Corticosteroid Treatment Fails to Prevent Long-term Axonal Loss Assessed by Diffusion Basis Spectrum Imaging

Tsen-Hsuan (Abby) Lin¹, Jie Zhan², Chunyu Song³, Michael Wallendorf⁴, Peng Sun¹, Anne H Cross^5,6, and Sheng-Kwei Song^1,3,6

¹Radiology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, United States, ²Radiology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University, Jiangxi, People's Republic of China, ³Biomedical Engineering, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, United States, ⁴Biostatistics, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, United States, ⁵Neurology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, United States, ⁶The Hope Center for Neurological Disorders, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, United States

Glucocorticoids are commonly used to treat acute optic neuritis. Herein, we employed longitudinal diffusion basis spectrum imaging (DBSI) to examine and compare optic nerve integrity in EAE with PBS or Dexamethasone treatment. Our results indicate that anti-inflammatory treatment with corticosteroids alone is not sufficient to prevent eventual axonal loss in mice, and may have relevance for treatment of MS exacerbations with corticosteroids. DBSI could serve as an outcome measure to monitor longitudinal disease progression and to help stratify treatments.

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