Quix...AGAIN I need your expertise and medical terminology please...

[Rena705]

Hey all!  
I know I haven't been around much and for that I am sorry.  I hope everyone is holding steady and not having to deal with too much crap from this nasty b**** called MS!  I am not doing too bad...the hot italian neuro says that while I am progressing it is slow and for that I am grateful!  Dealing with bladder issues now and my brain seems to be having fun with vertigo...although I don't tend to agree that it's fun! :(  I am seeing a urologist now and I really like her...she did a cystoscopy and confirmed that it the MS causing my problems so I am on meds for that now too!  I guess you can never take too many pills eh?  ha ha  My teeth seem to be bearing the worst from this stinking disease though due to dry mouth from all the meds I am taking.  Have had two extractions and a couple of root canals lately and then of course that throws everything out of whack and I have to start all over again to feel good every time I see the dentist.

On the bright side, we have been on our first fishing trip already and looking forward to a second.  Not sure where we are going yet but we'll figure it out sooner or later I guess.

Anyway, I found this article online and I was wondering if our Dear Quix could decipher it into the english language so that we can understand it?  I think it's something we all want to see but don't quote me on that...all it is doing is confusing me!  Thank you Quix in advance for having a look at this and I look forward to hearing from you!

Hugs to all!
Rena

  
MRI pattern recognition in multiple sclerosis normal-appearing brain areas
Weygandt M, Hackmack K, Pfüller C, Bellmann-Strobl J, Paul F, Zipp F, Haynes JD.
PLoS One. 2011;6(6):e21138. Epub 2011 Jun 17.

Data from this study showed that compared to healthy controls, patients with MS have tissue alterations in normal-appearing brain tissue, detectable with high specificity using local brain tissue intensity patterns by a combination of conventional MR techniques and pattern recognition algorithms. By assessing small brain areas located either in lesioned tissue, normal-appearing grey matter tissue, or normal-appearing white matter, the researchers were able to demonstrate that standard MR techniques have sufficient sensitivity to capture tissue alterations in normal-appearing brain areas of MS-patients.

[Rena705]

Thanks for the information!

Rena

[COBOB]

I have also posted several times on the forum about the ability of MT-MRI that can detect changes in Normal Appearing White Matter up to two years before the formation of a lesion.  This is based on its ability of Magnetization Transfer to detect Bound versus Unbound Hydrogen Protons  in brain tissue.

Most MRI software can do MT-MRI sequences today..

Bob

[Rena705]

It all sounds pretty complicated to me and I guess that is partly why I am the patient and my sexy italian neuro is a neuro right?  he he
I haven't been following here for a while and that is not good on my part.  I do appreciate your response jen and I will check out those sites that you gave me!

Rena

[jensequitur]

Hey, Rena!  Long time no see!  Well, I ain't Quix, and I know she would be able to interpret this more clearly... but I'll give it a shot.

A while back, they had some sophisticated MRI techniques that were able to detect iron deposits in normal-appearing gray matter - gray matter that until recently looked normal, compared to the lesion activity.  This sounds like it's more of the same.  I don't know what they're using to filter the information so the patterns are more visible, but they're finding new ways all the time to juggle those MRI numbers.

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0021138

http://www.biotechmashup.com/beta/Mathematics/MRI_Pattern_Recognition_in_Multiple_Sclerosis_Normal_Appearing_Brain_Areas/

Just at a guess, it looks like they're trying to find new ways of diagnosing MS with a scan of a small part of the brain, instead of the whole brain.  Turbo Inversion Recovery Magnitude... sounds complicated!