New Technique Exposes Hidden Multiple Sclerosis Damage in Routine MRI Scans

Researchers have developed an artificial intelligence method that can uncover previously hidden signs of multiple sclerosis in routine MRI scans. For decades, multiple sclerosis specialists have been forced to study the disease through an incomplete picture. Standard magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can reveal damage in the brain’s white matter, but some of the lesions most [...]

Researchers have developed an artificial intelligence method that can uncover previously hidden signs of multiple sclerosis in routine MRI scans. For decades, multiple sclerosis specialists have been forced to study the disease through an incomplete picture. Standard magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can reveal damage in the brain’s white matter, but some of the lesions most closely tied to disability and cognitive decline have remained largely invisible.

Those hidden injuries occur in the gray matter, particularly the brain’s cortex. Researchers have long known that cortical lesions can offer important clues about how MS progresses and how severely it may affect a patient. Yet routine MRI has not provided a reliable way to detect or monitor them, leaving clinicians with a major blind spot.

Even many of the newer drugs that can slow MS progression are designed primarily around reducing white matter lesions. Now, a University at Buffalo-led research team has used artificial intelligence to expose some of that previously concealed damage in existing MRI scans. Published in Communications Medicine, the study shows how computational methods can compare information across multiple images and recover disease signals that conventional viewing methods fail to capture.

“Detecting previously invisible cortical lesions on conventional legacy MRI scans has major implications for MS research and clinical care,” says Robert Zivadinov, MD, PhD, senior