Fractal dimension and white matter changes in multiple sclerosis

Esteban, Francisco J.; Sepulcre, Jorge; Mendizábal, Nieves Vélez de; Goñi, Joaquín; Navas, J.; Miras, Juan Ruiz de; Bejarano, Bartolomé; Masdeu, Joseph C.; Villoslada, Pablo

doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2007.03.057

Cited by 109 publications

(91 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…in the GM. This finding is striking because in our previous study assessing the FD of the WM, we found a decrease instead of an increase in the FD of the WM in MS patients [17]. This differential behavior in the FD between GM and WM in MS supports the concept that the damage mechanism or the response to tissue damage differs between GM and WM.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 71%

“…Therefore, new methods able to quantify GM pathology would be very important for monitoring disease course. Based on our findings, FD studies represent a useful measurement to detect GM changes in the cerebral architecture, providing an overall measurement of anatomical changes due to MS, as previously shown at the WM level [17].…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 69%

“…For this purpose we used SPM2 toolbox (Wellcome Department of Cognitive Neurology, University College of London, London, UK), www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/spm running under Matlab v. 6.5 (Mathworks Inc., Natick, MA), and MRIcro software (Chris Rorden, University of Nottingham, Great Britain; http://www.sph.sc.edu/comd/rorden/mricro.html). In brief, a 3D binary MS lesion mask in native space was created at the voxel level for each patient (intra-class correlation coefficient = 0.892 (p b 0.001) [17]. Later, we applied this lesion mask to regions containing visible lesions in every segmentation and normalization step in the VBM protocol [23].…”

Section: Brain Segmentation and Volume Of Lesionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There are different approaches for detecting and quantifying the subtle neuropathological alterations taking place in the brain tissue in MS patients, including the magnetization-transfer ratio, diffusion-weighted imaging, or magnetic-resonance spectroscopy [16]. Recently, we found that fractal dimension (FD) identifies changes in the WM of MS patients, including the normal-appearing WM, even at the early stage of the disease [17]. FD is a measurement of the topological complexity of an object [18], and thus changes in the FD indicate alterations in the tissue structure under study.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…FD is a measurement of the topological complexity of an object [18], and thus changes in the FD indicate alterations in the tissue structure under study. Because the WM has a highly complex anatomy such as the presence of axonal bundles, a pathological process that destroys brain tissue by creating an amorphous glial scar would decrease the FD of this tissue, as was the case of WM in MS [17]. Thus, FD can serve as a surrogate marker of the degree of brain damage.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Fractal dimension analysis of grey matter in multiple sclerosis

Esteban

Sepulcre

Miras

et al. 2009

Journal of the Neurological Sciences

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The fractal dimension (FD) is a quantitative parameter that characterizes the morphometric variability of a complex object. Among other applications, FD has been used to identify abnormalities of the human brain in conventional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), including white matter abnormalities in patients with Multiple Sclerosis (MS). Extensive grey matter (GM) pathology has been recently identified in MS and it appears to be a key factor in long-term disability. The aim of the present work was to assess whether FD measurement of GM in T1 MRI sequences can identify GM abnormalities in patients with MS in the early phase of the disease. A voxel-based morphometry approach optimized for MS was used to obtain the segmented brain, where we later calculated the three-dimensional FD of the GM in MS patients and healthy controls. We found that patients with MS had a significant increase in the FD of the GM compared to controls. Such differences were present even in patients with short disease durations, including patients with first attacks of MS. In addition, the FD of the GM correlated with T1 and T2 lesion load, but not with GM atrophy or disability. The FD abnormalities of the GM here detected differed from the previously published FD of the white matter in MS, suggesting that different pathological processes were taking place in each structure. These results indicate that GM morphology is abnormal in patients with MS and that this alteration appears early in the course of the disease.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 71%

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 69%

Section: Brain Segmentation and Volume Of Lesionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Fractal dimension analysis of grey matter in multiple sclerosis

Esteban

Sepulcre

Miras

et al. 2009

Journal of the Neurological Sciences

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Contribution of White Matter Lesions to Gray Matter Atrophy in Multiple Sclerosis

et al. 2009

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Background: The biological basis of gray matter (GM) atrophy in multiple sclerosis is not well understood, but GM damage seems to be the most critical factor leading to permanent disability. Objective: To assess to what extent white matter (WM) lesions contribute to regional GM atrophy in multiple sclerosis. Design: Because optic pathway GM atrophy and optic radiation lesions, rather than being related to each other, could be independent results of the disease, we applied a nonaprioristic WM method to analyze the interrelationships of both phenomena. On a voxel-byvoxel basis, we correlated T1 magnetic resonance imaging-derived lesion probability maps of the entire brain with atrophy of the lateral geniculate nuclei and calcarine/pericalcarine cortices.

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Fractal Approaches to Image Analysis

Haidekker¹

2010

Advanced Biomedical Image Analysis

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Fractal dimension and white matter changes in multiple sclerosis

Cited by 109 publications

References 36 publications

Fractal dimension analysis of grey matter in multiple sclerosis

Fractal dimension analysis of grey matter in multiple sclerosis

Contribution of White Matter Lesions to Gray Matter Atrophy in Multiple Sclerosis

Fractal Approaches to Image Analysis

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