Quantitative functional MR imaging of the visual cortex at 1.5 T as a function of luminance contrast in healthy volunteers and patients with multiple sclerosis

In patients with multiple sclerosis (MS), a few preliminary functional MR (fMR) imaging studies of the visual cortex reveal information about magnitude differences between healthy individuals and patients with MS at only a single luminance level. We therefore investigated whether varying luminance c...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:American journal of neuroradiology : AJNR 2002, Vol.23 (1), p.59-65
Main Authors: FARO, Scott H, MOHAMED, Feroze B, TRACY, Joseph I, ELFONT, Robert M, PINUS, Alexander B, LUBLIN, Fred D, KOENIGSBERG, Robert A, CHEN, Cheng Y, TSAI, Fong Y
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Arousal - physiology
Biological and medical sciences
Brain
Female
Humans
Image Enhancement
Magnetic Resonance Imaging - methods
Male
Medical sciences
Middle Aged
Multiple Sclerosis - diagnosis
Multiple Sclerosis - physiopathology
Multiple sclerosis and variants. Guillain barré syndrome and other inflammatory polyneuropathies. Leukoencephalitis
Neurology
Optic Neuritis - diagnosis
Optic Neuritis - physiopathology
Oxygen - blood
Pattern Recognition, Visual - physiology
Reference Values
Sensitivity and Specificity
Visual Cortex - physiopathology
Visual Pathways - physiopathology
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Summary:In patients with multiple sclerosis (MS), a few preliminary functional MR (fMR) imaging studies of the visual cortex reveal information about magnitude differences between healthy individuals and patients with MS at only a single luminance level. We therefore investigated whether varying luminance contrast levels can help uncover subtle changes in fMR imaging characteristics of the visual cortex in healthy volunteers and patients with MS. Blood oxygenation level-dependent fMR imaging signal changes in the primary visual cortex were examined as a function of luminance contrast at 1.5 T in 10 healthy volunteers and nine patients with MS. Ten axial sections through the calcarine fissure were obtained with an echo-planar T2*-weighted imaging sequence (4000/54/1 [TR/TE/excitation]; field of view, 220 mm; voxel size, 1.72 x 1.72 x 5 mm). The imaging series consisted of an alternating 20-second rest epoch (black screen) with a 20-second activation epoch (flickering checkerboard) repeated six times. Each imaging series used a graded increase of eight luminance contrast levels. A paired t test between rest and activation images was used to analyze significant (P
ISSN:0195-6108
1936-959X