Spatial patterns of brain lesions assessed through covariance estimations of lesional voxels in multiple Sclerosis: The SPACE-MS technique.

ABSTRACT: Predicting disability in progressive multiple sclerosis (MS) is extremely challenging. Although there is some evidence that the spatial distribution of white matter (WM) lesions may play a role in disability accumulation, the lack of well-established quantitative metrics that characterise these aspects of MS pathology makes it difficult to assess their relevance for clinical progression. This study introduces a novel approach, called SPACE-MS, to quantitatively characterise spatial distributional features of brain MS lesions, so that these can be assessed as predictors of disability accumulation. In SPACE-MS, the covariance matrix of the spatial positions of each patient's lesional voxels is computed and its eigenvalues extracted. These are combined to derive rotationally-invariant metrics

SUBMITTER: Tur C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8654632 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature