Patient-Centered Neurological Evaluation of Functional MRI Outcomes in Multiple Sclerosis

Motivation: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is the most common neurodegenerative disease in young adults with significant gaps in spinal cord (SC) imaging necessitating advanced techniques like fMRI to better characterize MS pathology. Goal(s): We aim to explore SC functional connectivity (FC) via resting-state functional MRI (fMRI) to disentangle the complex interactions between biological variables, disease metrics, and synchronous BOLD activity. Approach: We acquired mFFE and fMRI images in MS patients and healthy controls (HC), performed image post-processing, and analyzed correlations between 6 gray matter (GM) networks. Results: SC FC differs significantly depending on cohort and subject characteristics, like disease metrics and biological variables like gender. Impact: Implications include a robust analytical evaluation of the rs-fMRI signatures arising in the MS SC and their relationship to functional integrity. By understanding fMRI in the SC of MS patients, we may better understand the human experience of MS.