Brain Volumetric Assessment and its Relation to Cognition and Fatigue in Multiple Sclerosis

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an immune-mediated demyelinating disease of the CNS. MS is believed to impact 900, 000 patients in the USA. MS negatively impacts quality of life by affecting motor functions, cognitive abilities, and employment in those aged 20 to 30. New imaging modalities aided in measuring brain volume with MRI-related tools. MRI-measured brain volume loss was found to be correlated with atrophy and the degree of impairment in MS. Early studies of MS confirmed both white and grey matter loss. Grey matter damage may precede white matter damage. Furthermore, grey matter volume reduction is more pronounced and is more correlated to clinical outcomes than white matter. More advanced MRI techniques for studying microstructural brain alterations and ultra-high-field MRI for evaluating cognitive deficits in MS patients will help researchers better understand the disease's cognitive abnormalities in MS patients. The next and most challenging task is to create testable, physiologically informed models of disease-related cognitive deficits using the extensive multimodality imaging data. As MRI technology advances, researchers are more interested in examining specific brain regions and their relevance to MS fatigue. Many areas were identified in the frontal and parietal cortices, thalami, and basal ganglia. The fronto-striatal network and the cortico-cortical network have all been found to play an important role in MS-related fatigue.