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Abstract #3602

Using the Null Point Imaging to Improve Cortical Lesion Detection in MS

Olivier E. Mougin1, Rasha Abdel-Fahim2, Alain Pitiot3, Nikos Evangelou2, Penelope A. Gowland4

1SPMMRC, School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, Select, United Kingdom; 2Clinical Neurology, School of Clinical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, United Kingdom; 3School of Psychology, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, United Kingdom; 4SPMMRC, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, Select, United Kingdom


This study aims to detect pure intra-cortical lesions in MS patients. High resolution Null Point Images, part of the Phase Sensitive Inversion Recovery protocol (0.6mm isotropic), have been acquired at 7T using a novel imaging sequence. The NPI and PSIR contrast has been compared between white matter, grey matter and cortical grey matter, showing a greater NAGM/cGM lesion contrast to noise ratio at 7T for the NPI, providing a better delineation of the WM and the cGM lesions at high resolution. The sequence is being used to study changes in the cortex of MS patients