The goal of this research is to develop novel imaging tools and approaches at ultra high field 7 Tesla (7T) MRI for studying cortical lesions, cortical demyelination, and neurodegeneration in individuals with multiple sclerosis to better understand the mechanisms that lead to the development of cortical lesions in the course of the disease, and assess how cortical pathology impacts clinical outcome. We aim to validate these methods with ex vivo imaging and histopathology of multiple sclerosis brain specimens.
7T MRI acquisitions protocols are also used in combination with novel spinal cord segmentation tools, developed by our collaborator Dr. Cohen-Adad in Montreal, for assessing the occurrence, evolution, and clinical correlates of pathology in both the gray and white matter of the spinal cord at different stages of multiple sclerosis.
Selected publications:
1) Mainero C, Benner T, Radding A, van der Kouwe A, Jensen R, Rosen BR, Kinkel RP. In vivo imaging of cortical pathology in multiple sclerosis using ultra high field MRI. Neurology, 2009; 73(12):941-8. PMID: 19641168.
2) Cohen-Adad J, Greve D, Benner T, Radding A, Kinkel AP, Rosen BR, Fischl B, Mainero C. In vivo evidence of disseminated subpial T2* signal changes in multiple sclerosis at 7T: a surface- based analysis. Neuroimage, 2011; 57(1):55-62.
3) Cohen-Adad J, Polimeni JR, Helmer KG, Benner T, McNab JA, Wald LL, Rosen BR, Mainero C. T2* mapping and B0 orientation-dependence at 7T reveal cyto- and myeloarchitecture organization of the human cortex. Neuroimage, 2012 Jan 15;60(2):1006-1014. PMID: 22270354.
4) Nielsen AS, Kinkel RP, Tinelli E, Benner T, Cohen-Adad J, Mainero C. Focal cortical lesion detection in multiple sclerosis: 3 tesla DIR versus 7 tesla FLASH-T2*. J Magn Reson Imaging, 2012 Mar;35(3):537. doi: 10.1002/jmri.22847. PMID: 22045554.
5) Nielsen AS, Kinkel RP, Madigan N, Tinelli E, Benner T, Mainero C. Contribution of cortical lesion subtypes at 7T MRI to physical and cognitive performance in MS. Neurology, 2013 Aug 13;81(7):641-9. PMID: 23864311.
6) Govindarajan ST, Cohen-Adad J, Sormani MP, Fan AP, Louapre C, Mainero C. Reproducibility of T2* mapping in the human cerebral cortex in vivo at 7 tesla MRI. J Magn Reson Imaging, 2014 Nov 19. doi: 10.1002/jmri.24789. PMID: 25407671.
7) Mainero C; Louapre C; Govindarajan ST; Giannì C; Nielsen AS; Cohen-Adad J; Sloane J, Kinkel RP. A gradient in cortical pathology in multiple sclerosis by in vivo quantitative 7 Tesla imaging. Brain, 2015 Apr;138(Pt 4):932-45. PMID: 25681411.
8) Mangeat G, Govindarajan ST, Mainero C, Cohen-Adad J. Multivariate combination of magnetization transfer, T2* and B0 orientation to study the myelo-architecture of the in
vivo human cortex. Neuroimage, 2015 Oct 1;119:89-102. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2015.06.033. PMID: 26095090.
9) Louapre C, Govindarajan ST, Giannì C, Langkammer C, Sloane JA, Kinkel RP, Mainero C. Beyond focal cortical lesions in MS: an in vivo quantitative and spatial imaging study at 7 T. Neurology, 2015;85:1702–1709. PMID: 26468411.
10) Louapre C, Govindarajan ST, Giannì C, Madigan N, Nielsen AS, Sloane JA, Kinkel RP, Mainero C. The association between intra- and juxta-cortical pathology and cognitive impairment in multiple sclerosis by quantitative T2* mapping at 7T MRI. Neuroimage Clin. 2016 Nov 3;12:879-886. PMID: 27872810.
11) Mangeat G, Badji A, Ouellette R, Treaba CA, Herranz E, Granberg T, Louapre C, Stikov N, Sloane JA, Bellec P, Mainero C, Cohen-Adad J. Changes in structural network are associated with cortical demyelination in early multiple sclerosis. Hum Brain Mapp. 2018 Feb 6. doi: 10.1002/hbm.23993. PMID: 2941145.
12) Gros C, De Leener B, Badji A, Maranzano J, Eden D, Dupont SM, Talbott J, Zhuoquiong R, Liu Y, Granberg T, Ouellette R, Tachibana Y, Hori M, Kamiya K, Chougar L, Stawiarz L, Hillert J, Bannier E, Kerbrat A, Edan G, Labauge P, Callot V, Pelletier J, Audoin B, Rasoanandrianina H, Brisset JC, Valsasina P, Rocca MA, Filippi M, Bakshi R, Tauhid S, Prados F, Yiannakas M, Kearney H, Ciccarelli O, Smith S, Treaba CA, Mainero C, Lefeuvre J, Reich DS, Nair G, Auclair V, McLaren DG, Martin AR, Fehlings MG, Vahdat S, Khatibi A, Doyon J, Shepherd T, Charlson E, Narayanan S, Cohen-Adad J. Automatic segmentation of the spinal cord and intramedullary multiple sclerosis lesions with convolutional neural networks. Neuroimage. 2018 Oct 6;184:901-915. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2018.09.081.
13) Ouelette R, Treaba CA, Granberg T et al. Characterization of spinal cord pathology and its correlates at ultra-high field MRI. Poster Session 1. Mult Scler. 2017;23 (3_suppl):85-426.