The study showed that the 7-tesla technique could pick up slight differences in functional connectivity in the spinal cords of 22 patients with a relapsing-remitting form of MS compared to healthy controls. Differences were most pronounced in regions of patients’ spinal cords that had visible lesions.

A lesion in the spinal cord presumably will cause some neurological damage. But this is the first time researchers have been able to noninvasively demonstrate that the presence of a lesion is correlated with altered neurological activity in the spinal cord.


These findings suggest that the technique might be used to determine whether medications, physical therapy or other interventions are preserving neurological function and thus slowing the course of the disease.

Few medical centers have access to a 7-tesla scanner. Conventional MRI scanners generate a magnetic field strength in the range of 3 tesla.

Recently Barry, Conrad and their coauthor, Satoshi Maki, MD, PhD, showed that it is possible to obtain high-quality measures of functional connectivity from the spinal cords of healthy volunteers using a 3-tesla scanner.

The Vanderbilt scientists are applying for a National Institutes of Health grant to do the same study at clinically relevant MRI field strengths in patients with MS, and recently won an NIH award to study spinal cord functional changes in patients with compressive myelopathy, compression of the spinal cord.

If the findings continue to hold up in larger and more diverse patient groups, “this technique could be deployed in a rural clinic in West Virginia just as easily as in an advanced medical center, and thus be able to reach a significantly larger population” Smith said.

It also could be useful in monitoring rehabilitation from spinal cord injuries or evaluating the functional effects of stem cell therapies for repairing nerves damaged by ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease), Conrad added.

Smith is associate professor in the Department of Radiology and Radiological Sciences in the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. Gore, who also contributed to the study, is University Professor in the Department and the Hertha Ramsey Cress Professor of Medicine.

Other Vanderbilt faculty members listed as co-authors were Aashim Bhatia, MD, Siddharama Pawate, MBBS, Baxter Rogers, PhD, and Subramaniam Sriram, MBBS.

The research was supported in part by National Institutes of Health grants EB014841, NS092961, NS104149 and EB016689.

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