Evaluation of neuroinflammation and myelin content using PET / MRI images of cervical spinal cord of patients with Multiple Sclerosis and healthy volunteers

Abstract

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic inflammatory neurodegenerative disease of the central nervous system, with multifactorial origin and main responsible for nontraumatic neurological dysfunctions in young adults. Central Nervous System cells and peripheral immune system mediate the inflammation and demyelination process of neural axons, which can lead to neuronal and axonal degeneration, resulting in a varied framework of location-dependent clinical manifestations, and classifying them into different phenotypes. The diagnosis and progression of the disease results from the evaluation of functional and laboratory parameters as well as the use of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). The well-established MRI can be complemented with quantitative parameters, through functional images obtained by positron emission tomography (PET). Our group has been working with hybrid PET/MR images using neuroinflammation markers (11C-PK11195) and myelin content (11C-PIB) in patients with MS, however ongoing studies are evaluating brain imaging and this study proposes the study of cervical spinal cord images. The aim of this project is to evaluate neuroinflammation and myelin content in patients with Healthy MS, and correlate clinical findings with cervical spinal cord hybrid PET/MRI images of these individuals.