The Impact of MRI T1 Hypointense Brain Lesions on Cerebral Deep Gray Matter Volume Measures in Multiple Sclerosis

Abstract

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Deep gray matter (DGM) atrophy has been shown at early stages of multiple sclerosis (MS) and reported as an informative marker of cognitive dysfunction and clinical progression. Therefore, accurate measurement of DGM structure volume is a key priority in MS research. Findings from prior studies have shown that hypointense T1 lesions may impact the accuracy of global brain volume measures; however, literature on the effects of hypointense T1 lesions on DGM structure volumes is sparse. METHODS: We explored the effects of hypointense T1 lesions on data from 54 relapsing remitting MS patients. Lesions were segmented both manually and with a freely available automatic lesion segmentation/in-painting algorithm (Lesion Segmentation Tool-LST). Volumes of 14 DGM structures were calculated from non-in-painted and in-painted images and compared via paired t-tests, intraclass correlation coefficient, and Dice similarity coefficient.RESULTS: There were no significant differences in DGM structural volumes between non-in-painted and in-painted images. Automatic lesion-segmentation/in-painting tool provided similar results to manual segmentation/in-painting. CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that lesion in-painting has a negligible impact on DGM structure volume measurement although some regions are more vulnerable to the impact of lesions than others. Furthermore, manual lesion segmentation/inpainting can be replaced by an automatic segmentation/in-painting process.

Summary metrics of memory subnetwork functional connectivity alterations in multiple sclerosis

“…Written informed consent was obtained from all participants prior to enrollment. Participant data were collected for two prospective cohorts: MS sample 1 (RADIEMS: 24,25 183 patients within 5 years of relapsing-remitting (RRMS) or clinically isolated syndrome diagnosis), 35 age-, sex-, and IQ-matched HCs; and MS sample 2 (MEM CONNECT: 26 52 RRMS patients). For sample characteristics, see Table 1.…”