Investigation of cortical and subcortical structures in multiple sclerosis patients

Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is a chronic disease that affects the central nervous system and manifests itself through attacks. There is no laboratory test that can definitively diagnose MS, but neurological imaging techniques are widely used in the diagnosis and treatment of this disease. Lesions likely to be seen in MS are mostly located in the optic nerve, brain stem, gray matter, cerebellum, and spinal cord, and can be identified by magnetic resonance imaging. Studies have found that neurological structures are affected in MS patients. In this context, the aim was to compare the results of both groups by performing brain parcellation using voxel-based morphometry (VBM) and identifying areas showing activation and inactivation in cortical and subcortical structures using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in healthy individuals and MS patients. Our study was conducted on MRIs of 60 patients (44 female, 16 male) diagnosed with MS and 60 healthy individuals (44 female, 16 male) in the same age range at the Department of Neurology, Kırşehir Ahi Evran University Training and Research Hospital. VBM analysis was performed on the obtained MRIs. According to the results of the VBM analysis, an increase in GM density was detected in MS patients in the cerebellum (left lobulus semilunaris inferior), cerebellar tonsil, frontal gyrus (gyrus frontalis superior/medius/inferior, gyrus orbitalis), Brodmann areas 6-8-9-11, and frontal lobe (gyrus rectus) showed increased GM density; while the thalamus, nuc. caudatus, putamen, gyrus cinguli, hippocampus, gyrus parahippocampalis, uncus, amygdala, enthorinal cortex, cerebellum/vermis (culmen, declive, uvula), temporal lobe (gyrus temporalis medialis/inferior), gyrus occipitotemporalis lateralis, insula, Brodmann areas 20-21-37-41, occipital lobe/gyrus lingualis, Brodmann areas 18-19, postcentral gyrus, supramarjinal gyrus showed decreased GM density. Furthermore, statistically significant differences were found between the patient and control groups in terms of total intracranial volume, gray matter, and white matter volume (p<0.05). MS has been found to adversely affect many neuroanatomical structures in both the brain (cortical and subcortical) and cerebellum. We believe that the changes in brain and cerebellar structures observed in our study contribute to the manifestation of symptoms seen in MS patients.