A voxel based diffusion tensor image analysis on cognitive decline in mildly and moderately impaired multiple sclerosis patients

Introduction: The aim of this study was to examine differences diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) measures between healthy subjects on the one hand and mildly and moderately affected Multiple Sclerosis (MS) patients on the other hand. In addition, the relationship between the Paced Auditory Serial Addition Test (PASAT) tests of cognitive decline and micro-structural white matter breakdown, as assessed by DTI measures, was studied in an automated whole brain analysis. To this end, an optimized voxel based analysis approach, in terms of coregistration, atlas construction, and smoothing, was used to compare the diffusion properties of all subjects in every brain voxel and to correlate them with PASAT scores.