Microstructural alterations of cerebellar peduncles in multiple sclerosis: a diffusion tensor imaging study

1. Acta Neurol Belg. 2025 Jun;125(3):679-689. doi: 10.1007/s13760-024-02675-x.
Epub 2024 Nov 1.

Microstructural alterations of cerebellar peduncles in multiple sclerosis: a
diffusion tensor imaging study.

Seyedmirzaei H(1)(2), Soltani Khaboushan A(3), Abdolalizadeh A(4), Aarabi MH(5).

Author information:
(1)Sports Medicine Research Center, Neuroscience Institute, Tehran University of
Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. .
(2)Interdisciplinary Neuroscience Research Program (INRP), Tehran University of
Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. .
(3)School of Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS), Tehran,
Iran.
(4)Biological Psychology, Department of Psychology, School of Medicine and
Health Sciences, Carl Von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, Oldenburg, Germany.
(5)Department of Neuroscience and Padova Neuroscience Center (PNC), University
of Padova, Padua, Italy. .

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Ataxia, tremors, dysarthria, and sometimes impaired
cognition are the signs of cerebellum involvement in multiple sclerosis (MS).
These symptoms affect up to 80% of patients and are usually hard to treat. To
find the underlying involvement of the cerebellum in MS, we assessed the
microstructural alterations with DTI in the cerebellar peduncles of the affected
subjects.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: We included 58 relapsing-remitting MS patients and 27
healthy controls. Patients were divided into 18 patients of relapsing-remitting
MS with cerebellar impairment (RRMSc) and 40 without cerebellar impairment
(RRMSnc). Using Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI), we calculated fractional
anisotropy (FA), mean diffusivity (MD), radial diffusivity (RD), and axial
diffusivity (AD) metrics in all subjects. We also checked if there were
associations between DTI metrics and clinical cerebellar measures (i.e., tremor
severity and the scale for the assessment and rating of ataxia).
RESULTS: ANOVA and post-hoc results showed significant differences in DTI
metrics between RRMSc and HC and between RRMSnc and HC subjects. Inferior
peduncle RD remained the only metric with a significant difference across all
pairwise comparisons. The general linear model assessing the effects of the
three study groups on the association between DTI metrics and clinical
cerebellar measures yielded no significant result.
CONCLUSIONS: Our study showed that DTI can mainly reveal significant differences
between different MS groups and HCs. Our results imply the role of cerebellar
peduncles in the pathophysiology of MS and that this role does not necessarily
reflect the severity of cerebellar signs of the patients.

© 2024. The Author(s) under exclusive licence to Belgian Neurological Society.

DOI: 10.1007/s13760-024-02675-x
PMID: 39482422 [Indexed for MEDLINE]

Conflict of interest statement: Declarations. Competing interests: The authors
declare that there is no conflict of interest. Ethics approval: We have used the
data provided by the CRIMSON study. According to Roostaei et al. 2019, the
CRIMSON study was approved by the Tehran University of Medical Sciences ethics
committee. A written informed consent was acquired from the subjects, and they
have also agreed that their data can be shared or used in future studies.

Auteurs Bordeaux Neurocampus