Abstract #1125

Diffusion Tensor Imaging Detects Injury to Medial Longitudinal Fasciculus

Ken E. Sakaie¹, Masaya Takahashi², Koji Sagiyama², Bharath Atthe¹, Osamu Togao², Ivan E. Dimitrov³, Gina Remington⁴, Teresa Frohman⁴, Elliot Frohman⁴, Robert Fox⁵

¹Imaging Institute, The Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH, United States; ²Advanced Imaging Research Center, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, United States; ³Philips Medical Systems, Highland Heights, OH, United States; ⁴Neurology and Neuro-therapeutics, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, United States; ⁵Mellen Center, The Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH, United States

This work tests the hypothesis that diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) detects injury to the medial longitudinal fasciculus (MLF) in MS patients with internuclear ophthalmoparesis (INO). DTI provides quantitative measures of tissue injury while injury to the MLF in MS provokes well-characterized ocular motor disorder, INO. The tight relationship between the MLF and ocular motor function provides a unique opportunity to refine our capabilities to couple a disease-related pathophysiologic signature with advanced imaging metrics of CNS tissue injury. However, as the MLF is a small pathway, it is unclear if DTI has sufficient sensitivity to detect injury associated with INO.