Fig 1.
Illustration of PSIR acquisition on two motor neuron disease patients.
A) Sagittal short tau inversion recovery (STIR) image used to prescribe the PSIR acquisitions at the four cervical disc levels (yellow lines). B-E) PSIR acquisitions (phase-sensitive reconstructed images are shown) of a patient with predominantly bulbar symptoms at C2-C3, C3-C4, C5-C6 and C7-T1 disc level, respectively; F-I) PSIR acquisitions of the patient with PLS at C2-C3, C3-C4, C5-C6 and C7-T1 disc level, respectively. Notice how gray and white matter are visibly reduced at all four levels in the PLS patient when compared with the patient with bulbar involvement.
Table 1.
Clinical characteristics and white and gray matter Z scores of patients with motor neuron disease.
Table 2.
Involved topographical anatomic regions and symptom severity in motor neuron disease patients.
Table 3.
Cognitive and motor findings of patients with motor neuron disease.
Fig 2.
Spinal cord gray (GM) and white matter (WM) areas of individual motor neuron disease (MND) patients.
GM and WM areas of the 10 MND patients (subject 1–10) at the four cervical levels (circles) compared to 10 healthy controls (solid line, data from Papinutto 2015[28]). Whiskers represent standard deviations.
Table 4.
Individual spinal cord gray (GM) and white matter (WM) areas of the 10 motor neuron disease (MND) patients.
Fig 3.
Spinal cord gray (GM) and white matter (WM) areas of all 10 motor neuron disease (MND) patients and healthy controls.
Average GM (left) and WM area (right) of the 10 MND patients at the four cervical levels (circles) compared to 10 healthy controls (solid line, data from Papinutto 2015[28]). Whiskers represent standard deviations.
Table 5.
Comparison of PSIR measurements for total cord, spinal cord gray and white matter areas (mm2) between healthy controls and motor neuron disease patients (MND).
Fig 4.
Association of gray and white matter spinal cord atrophy.
Gray matter area (x-axis) and white matter area (y-axis) for the 10 MND patients at the four cervical levels (indicated at the bottom right of each subfigure).