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Updated: Jun 18, 2026
08:57
Acute and Chronic Tactile Sensory Testing after Spinal Cord Injury in Rats
Published on: April 4, 2012
Primary progressive multiple sclerosis: tactile-associated functional MR activity in the cervical spinal cord
Federica Agosta1, Paola Valsasina, Martina Absinta
1Neuroimaging Research Unit, Institute of Experimental Neurology, Scientific Institute and University Hospital San Raffaele, 20132 Milan, Italy.
Radiology
|August 26, 2009
Summary
Patients with primary progressive multiple sclerosis (PP MS) exhibit overactivation in the cervical spinal cord during tactile stimulation. These functional changes may contribute to irreversible disability accumulation in PP MS.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Radiology
- Neurology
Background:
- Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is a chronic neurological disease.
- Primary progressive MS (PP MS) is characterized by gradual neurological decline.
- Spinal cord involvement is central to MS pathophysiology and disability.
Purpose of the Study:
- To quantify tactile-associated cervical spinal cord activation in PP MS patients.
- To correlate spinal cord functional activation with structural damage severity using MRI.
- To understand the neurobiological underpinnings of disability in PP MS.
Main Methods:
- Functional MRI (fMRI) of the cervical spinal cord during tactile stimulation.
- Conventional and diffusion-tensor MRI of the brain and spinal cord.
- Comparison of fMRI activation patterns between 23 PP MS patients and 18 healthy controls.
Main Results:
- PP MS patients showed significantly higher mean spinal cord activity than controls.
- Severely disabled PP MS patients lacked differential right-left spinal cord activation.
- Spinal cord functional activation correlated with fractional anisotropy, indicating structural integrity.
Conclusions:
- Patients with PP MS demonstrate tactile-associated cervical spinal cord overactivation.
- Altered spinal cord functional activity, potentially due to interneuron injury, contributes to progressive disability in PP MS.
- fMRI reveals functional compensation and breakdown in the spinal cord.
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