In multiple sclerosis (MS), conventional magnetic resonance imaging (cMRI) has proved to be a valuable tool to increase diagnostic confidence and for monitoring the efficacy of experimental treatment. However, cMRI has limited specificity and accuracy of cMRI to the most disabling aspects of the MS pathology, known to occur in and outside macroscopic lesions. Modern quantitative MR techniques have the potential to overcome the limitations of cMRI, and their application is changing dramatically our understanding of how MS causes irreversible disability. In detail, there is an increasing body of MR evidence that MS is not only a white matter disease and does not only cause focal lesions, as well as that neurodegeneration is an important aspect of the disease (since the earliest clinical phases), which is only partially related to inflammatory changes. There is also increasing perception that modern MR methodologies should be more extensively employed in clinical trials to derive innovative information.

Written by world-renowned scientists, the volume provides a state-of-the-art on the most recent MRI techniques related to MS, and it will bi and indispensable tool for all those working in this field.

In the last few years, increasing effort has been devoted to better define the characteristics of tissue damage occurring outside MRI-visible lesions in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) and, as a consequence, to improve our understanding of the disease pathobiology and of the mechanisms leading to the accumulation of irreversible disability. This book provides an updated review of the results obtained by leading research groups in this field. The potential clinical applications of what has been shown so far, as well as the areas for future research in the study of normal-appearing white and gray matter damage in MS are extensively discussed, making this book a valuable tool for clinical neurologists who are involved in the daily-life care of MS patients and for neuroscientists involved in MS research.

In multiple sclerosis (MS), conventional magnetic resonance imaging (cMRI) has proved to be a valuable tool to increase diagnostic confidence and for monitoring the efficacy of experimental treatment. However, cMRI has limited specificity and accuracy of cMRI to the most disabling aspects of the MS pathology, known to occur in and outside macroscopic lesions. Modern quantitative MR techniques have the potential to overcome the limitations of cMRI, and their application is changing dramatically our understanding of how MS causes irreversible disability. In detail, there is an increasing body of MR evidence that MS is not only a white matter disease and does not only cause focal lesions, as well as that neurodegeneration is an important aspect of the disease (since the earliest clinical phases), which is only partially related to inflammatory changes. There is also increasing perception that modern MR methodologies should be more extensively employed in clinical trials to derive innovative information.

Written by world-renowned scientists, the volume provides a state-of-the-art on the most recent MRI techniques related to MS, and it will bi and indispensable tool for all those working in this field.

In the last few years, increasing effort has been devoted to better define the characteristics of tissue damage occurring outside MRI-visible lesions in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) and, as a consequence, to improve our understanding of the disease pathobiology and of the mechanisms leading to the accumulation of irreversible disability. This book provides an updated review of the results obtained by leading research groups in this field. The potential clinical applications of what has been shown so far, as well as the areas for future research in the study of normal-appearing white and gray matter damage in MS are extensively discussed, making this book a valuable tool for clinical neurologists who are involved in the daily-life care of MS patients and for neuroscientists involved in MS research.