Imaging Gray Matter Disease in Multiple Sclerosis

Call for Papers

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has emerged as an invaluable tool in the study of multiple sclerosis (MS), shedding light on both structural and functional changes resulting in a better understanding of disease mechanisms. In addition, MRI has emerged as a key supportive outcome measure in MS clinical trials. Studies involving conventional MRI atrophy and lesions have significantly contributed to the progress in research and clinical care related to MS.

However, conventional MRI is relatively nonspecific for underlying MS pathology and shows relatively weak relationships to clinical status such as predictive strength for clinical progression. These limitations have motivated researchers to develop better biomarkers of the disease. Gray matter (GM) changes assessed by MRI hold promise as new biomarkers in uncovering a component of the disease, uniquely contributing to neurologic impairment and disease progression.

Views concerning the involvement of GM in MS have undergone considerable evolution in recent times. It is now known that GM is involved to a considerable extent in MS. GM disease in MS manifests on MRI scans in several ways including lesions, atrophy, abnormal neuronal metabolites, reduced magnetization transfer ratio, increased diffusivity, and T2 hypointensity. Such involvement begins early in the disease course and may occur, in part, independently of white matter (WM) damage. However, several questions remain to be clarified in the quest for a better understanding of GM disease in MS. For example, the mechanisms leading to GM damage remain unclear; the relationship between GM and WM damage is not well established and how GM imaging adds to the search for the most sensitive and clinically relevant longitudinal biomarkers of the underlying disease process. In the proposed special issue, we invite investigators to submit articles aimed at exploring GM disease and its role in explaining clinical findings in MS. This special issue will be open for both research articles as well as review articles. Potential topics include, but not limited to:

• Advanced and high/ultra-high field MRI techniques to assess GM damage
• Histopathological correlates of MRI changes in the GM
• Imaging GM iron deposition
• Imaging patterns of cortical reorganization
• Impact of disease modifying therapies on GM damage
• Other markers associated with GM damage (e.g., blood, cerebrospinal fluid, genetic, visual pathway imaging, and optical coherence tomography).

Before submission authors should carefully read over the journal's Author Guidelines, which are located at http://www.hindawi.com/journals/msi/guidelines/. Prospective authors should submit an electronic copy of their complete manuscript through the journal Manuscript Tracking System at http://mts.hindawi.com/submit/journals/msi/igm/ according to the following timetable:

Lead Guest Editor

• Mohit Neema, Department of Neurology, Brigham & Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

Guest Editors

• Antonia Ceccarelli, Department of Neurology, Brigham & Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
• Augusto A. Miravalle, Department of Neurology, School of Medicine, University of Colorado Denver, Aurora, CO, USA
• Robert Bermel, Department of Neurology, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH, USA