Barbara Spano'1, Mara Cercignani, 12, Geoff J.M. Parker3, 4, Maura Castelli5, Barbara Basile1, Silvia Rossi5, Laura Serra1, Giuseppe Magnani6, Ugo
1Neuorimaging Laboratory, Santa Lucia Foundation, Rome, Italy; 2Brighton& Sussex Medical School, Clinical Imaging Sciences Centre, University of Sussex, Brighton, United Kingdom; 3Imaging Science & Biomedical Engineering, University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom; 4Biomedical Imaging Institute, University of Manchester, United Kingdom; 5Dept of Neuroscience, University of Rome "Tor Vergata", Rome, Italy; 6Department of Neurology, IRCCS University Hospital, San Raffaele, Milan, Italy; 7Department of Clinical and Behavioural Neurology, Santa Lucia Foundation, Rome, Italy
Anatomical disconnection of important processing regions by damage to the interconnecting white matter (WM), provides a potential mechanism for the accrual of disability in multiple sclerosis (MS). So far, structural disconnection in MS brains, has been estimated by local indexes of macro- and microscopic WM integrity. Here, we applied for the first time to a group of MS patients, a recently developed method based on diffusion-MRI and tractography, namely anatomical connectivity mapping (ACM). ACM revealed, in MS patients, patterns of anatomical disconnection accounting for both, deficits in the higher level control of motor abilities, and cognitive dysfunctions
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