Combined Structural and Functional Connectivity Analysis in Multiple Sclerosis

Edmund W. Wong¹, Roxana Teodorescu², Lazar Fleysher², Cheuk Ying Tang¹, Matilde Inglese², David Matthew Carpenter¹

We combined diffusion tensor imaging and resting state fMRI to assess the relationship between white matter integrity and functional coactivation during resting state in patients with relapsing-remitting MS (RR-MS) and healthy controls. The analysis was performed using independent component analysis to identify the default mode network, followed by dual-regression analyses used to find voxels where coactivation of the default mode network was correlated with global and, in a separate analysis, cingulum bundle FA. An inverse relationship was observed in both global and cingulum bundle FA with coactivations within the default mode network.