Tract-specific analysis improves sensitivity of spinal cord diffusion MRI to cross-sectional and longitudinal changes in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

摘要: Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a late-onset fatal neurodegenerative disease that causes progressive degeneration of motor neurons in the brain and spinal cord. Corticospinal tract defining feature ALS. However, there have been very few longitudinal, controlled studies assessing diffusion MRI (dMRI) metrics different fiber tracts along cord general or corticospinal particular. Here we demonstrate tract-specific analysis, with segmentation ascending descending white matter, substantially increases sensitivity dMRI to disease-related changes Our work also identifies levels affected ALS, supporting electrophysiologic pathologic evidence involvement sensory pathways We note cross-sectional area, enhanced effects through multimodal strong correlations between these components ALSFRS-R.