b'Medicine & Researchnatalizumab. In year two of the study, 75 percent The ndings were published in the Journalof these people had achieved NEDA. This is of Neuroimaging.completely in line with what many MS centers Dr. Thrower: MRI is a very useful tool forare seeing around the country. The majority of diagnosingandmanagingMS,butinitsrecently diagnosed people with MS became currentstate,ithaslimitations.Someofvery stable on natalizumab. those limitations include:3D view of brain lesions helps 1. A disconnect between disease progressionto show the extent of an injury and new MRI lesions. Many patients willIn this study, researchers at the University havebrainMRIsthatshownoneworof Texas Southwestern and UT Dallas recruited enlarging lesions, yet they will still experience23 patients with relapsing-remitting MS. Most progression of disability. Newer MRI techniquesof the patients were female with a median age will hopefully allow us to better correlateof 50.1 years old and the median time they the person with the picture.have had MS was 11.3 years. The researchers 2. Lack of specicity for MS lesions on MRI.looked at 109 lesions in these patients to create CurrentMRItechniquesdoallowustoa three-dimensional model of the lesions. identify when MS lesions are active andMeasurements of cerebral blood ow, blood-oxygen-level-dependent signal, and cerebral when axons have been transected to ametabolic rate of oxygen were calculated to certain degree. Hopefully, newer techniquescreate the 3D model. will give us insights into whats really goingResearchers were seeking to nd how far on within the bright white spots we see onmyelin damage extended from the lesion with MRI. This may be especially important asthe goal of identifying lesion characteristics we move closer to neural repair strategiesthat could then be managed clinically. They and the need to measure remyelinationfound that metabolically active lesions had and axonal regeneration.higher cerebral blood ow, more intact white Rat study indicates the potentialmatter, symmetrical shapes, and more complex of metformin in remyelination of cellssurface textures compared to inactive lesions. Researchers tested the eects of fasting onCurrent 2D models limit the view of the oligodendrocyte progenitor cells in both youngmagnitude of the lesion injury, potential for and old rats to learn if there were functionalrecovery and the eect on the surrounding area.changes in the cells and if there is a potentialAdditionalstudiesareneededtomake for remyelination. They applied their ndingsconnections between how a lesions 3D shape to tests with metformin, a diabetic medicationand texture affects the ability for myelin that helps control blood sugar levels, andto reform. Other validation studies with PET received similar outcomes. They found therescans, contrast and noncontract scans, and were some dierences in the mechanisms thattissuesamplestudies willprovidemore eected mitochondrial function between theaccuracy to this newly developed 3D method. younger and older OPCs. The researchers atmsfocusmagazine.org 54'