Regional grey matter microstructural changes and volume loss according to disease duration in multiple sclerosis patients

Abstract

The spatio-temporal characteristics of grey matter (GM) impairment in multiple sclerosis (MS) are poorly understood. We used a new surface-based diffusion MRI processing tool to investigate regional modifications of microstructure, and we quantified volume loss in GM in a cohort of patients with MS classified into three groups according to disease duration. Additionally, we investigated the relationship between GM changes with disease severity. We studied 54 healthy controls and 247 MS patients classified regarding disease duration: MS1 (less than 5 years, n = 67); MS2 (5–15 years, n = 107); and MS3 (more than15 years, n = 73). We compared GM mean diffusivity (MD), fractional anisotropy (FA) and volume between groups, and estimated their clinical associations. Regional modifications in diffusion measures (MD and FA) and volume did not overlap early in the disease, and became widespread in later phases. We found higher MD in MS1 group, mainly in the temporal cortex, and volume reduction in deep GM and left precuneus. Additional MD changes were evident in cingulate and occipital cortices in the MS2 group, coupled to volume reductions in deep GM and parietal and frontal poles. Changes in MD and volume extended to more than 80% of regions in MS3 group. Conversely, increments in FA, with very low effect size, were observed in the parietal cortex and thalamus in MS1 and MS2 groups, and extended to the frontal lobe in the later group. MD and GM changes were associated with white matter lesion load and with physical and cognitive disability. Microstructural integrity loss and atrophy present differential spatial predominance early in MS and accrual over time, probably due to distinct pathogenic mechanisms that underlie tissue damage.

Association of Lesion Location and Fatigue Symptoms After Ischemic Stroke: A VLSM Study

“…Infarct segmentation and registration to the standard MNI-152 brain template were performed in accordance with the previous published articles (Biesbroek et al, 2019 ). First, acute infarct lesions were segmented manually on DWI sequence using the ITK-SNAP software (Solana et al, 2021 ). Accordingly, a lesion mask was generated for each subject.…”

Changes in diffusion tensor imaging indices in basal ganglia and thalamus of patients with Relapsing-Remitting Multiple Sclerosis and relation with clinical conditions: A case-control study

“…However, FA changes in the thalamus in MS are controversial. Some studies have reported decreased FA in the thalamus of MS patients [27] , [28] while others showed increased FA values [3] , [23] , [29] , [30] .…”

Applying multilayer analysis to morphological, structural, and functional brain networks to identify relevant dysfunction patterns

“…Moreover, most GM regions showed connectivity changes, particularly in strength and closeness centrality. The atrophy of deep GM areas occurs in early stages of MS, and extends to multimodal cortical regions over time ( Eshaghi et al, 2018 ; Solana et al, 2021 ). In this context, we demonstrated that the network metrics applied to the new multilayer framework can pick up relevant network alterations in MS in most deep GM and in some cortical regions involved in visual areas (bilateral occipital and lingual areas) and cognition ( Gabilondo et al, 2014 ; Riccitelli et al, 2020 ; Zhang et al, 2021 ).…”