Caterina Mainero1, Carlos Lima1,
Julien Cohen-Adad1, Doug Greve1, Amy Radding1,
Thomas Benner1, R Philip Kinkel2, Bruce Fischl1,
Bruce R. Rosen1
1A. A. Martinos Center for Biomedical
Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA, United States; 2Neurology,
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, MA, United States
We
investigated whether a histogram-based analysis of 7T T2* signal intensity in
the cortex can show distributed subpial cortical changes in 14 patients with
multiple sclerosis (MS), as described histopathologically. We hypothesized
that this show significantly increased
T2* signal intensity in patients vs controls. FLASH-T2* spoiled
gradient-echo weighted images acquired at 7T. Pial and white matter surfaces
generated by FreeSurfer on a 3T MEMPR were overlaid on the 7T FLASH-T2*
images. T2* intensities were normalized to mean CSF intensity (T2*/CSF ) and
then sampled 1mm inside the pial surface. The histogram-based analysis showed
significant, diffuse T2*/CSF signal increases in MS vs matched controls,
particularly evident in frontal areas.
Keywords