Correlation Between Cognitive Functions and MRI in Multiple Sclerosis

Recent literature suggests that multiple sclerosis is accompanied by significant deficits in cognitive performance. The origin of these cognitive deficits is not known, since the severity of cognitive deficits was not found to be correlated with disease parameters such as duration, lesion load or disease intensity as measured on standard scales (e.g. EDSS). The research hypothesis we plan to test is that the individual intensity of cognitive deficits is correlated with degeneration of specific neuronal structures related to cognitive performance, such as the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex.

To test this hypothesis, we plan to perform volumetric measurements of such regions on MRI scans obtained from MS patients during the course of their clinical evaluation, and attempt to correlate those with the results of neuropsychological tests performed by the same subjects around the time of MRI scanning.