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Abstract #0063

Impact of acquisition strategies and spherical deconvolution algorithms on brain connectivity mapping in early multiple sclerosis

Carmen Tur1, Francesco Grussu1, Ferran Prados1,2, Thalis Charalambous1, Sara Collorone1, Niamh Cawley1, Baris Kanber1,2, Daniel R. Altmann1,3, Sébastien Ourselin1,4, Frederik Barkhof1,5, Jonathan D. Clayden6, Ahmed T. Toosy1, Claudia A.M. Gandini Wheeler-Kingshott1,7,8, and Olga Ciccarelli1

1UCL Institute of Neurology, Queen Square MS Centre, UCL, London, United Kingdom, 2Translational Imaging Group, Centre for Medical Image Computing, Department of Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering, UCL, London, United Kingdom, 3London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Medical Statistics Department, University of London, London, United Kingdom, 4Translational Imaging Group, Centre for Medical Image Computing, Department of Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering, UCL, United Kingdom, 5Department of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, Neuroscience Campus Amsterdam, VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 6UCL GOS Institute of Child Health, UCL, London, United Kingdom, 7Department of Brain and Behavioural Sciences, University of Pavia, Italy, 8Brain MRI 3T Mondino Research Center, C. Mondino National Neurological Institute, Italy

Multi-shell, multi-tissue (MSMT) constrained spherical deconvolution (CSD) allows precise white matter tract reconstructions in healthy brains. However, its implications for connectivity mapping in multiple sclerosis (MS) are unknown. Here we compare MSMT-CSD versus single-shell single-tissue (SSST)-CSD algorithms over different clinically-feasible diffusion-weighted protocols regarding their ability to reconstruct connectivity metrics that distinguish patients with a first inflammatory-demyelinating episode (n=19) from controls (n=12). Methodical analysis of data from time- and directionality-matched protocols showed that a greater angular resolution improves results and is preferable to choosing multi-tissue-CSD algorithms. Given similar angular resolution, all algorithms perform similarly, producing highly reproducible brain connectivity metrics.

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