Section: Application Domains

Applications of Diffusion MRI

Various examples of CNS diseases as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases and others like multiple sclerosis, traumatic brain injury and schizophrenia have characteristic abnormalities in the micro-structure of brain tissues that are not apparent and cannot be revealed reliably by standard imaging techniques. Diffusion MRI can make visible these co-lateral damages to the fibers of the CNS white matter that connect different brain regions. This is why in our research, Diffusion MRI is the major anatomical imaging modality that will be considered to recover the CNS connectivity.

• Clinical domain: Diagnosis of neurological disorder

  • Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases are among the most important CNS diseases. Six million patients (among which 850.000 in France) are suffering from Alzheimer's, making it the most important neurodegenerative disease in Europe. Over 85 years of age, 1 woman in 4 and 1 man in 5 are affected in Europe. In France, the number of Alzheimer's patients is expected to reach at least 2 million in 2025 and will probably double in 2050, with the increasing age of the population. Parkinson's disease is the second most important neurodegenerative disease. There are six and a half million patients in the world and roughly 150.000 patients in France, among which $10\%$ are under 40 and $50\%$ over 58. Together with our partners from NeuroSpin (Saclay), Inserm U678 and CENIR (CHUPS, Paris), we are involved in the ANR project NucleiPark which is about high field MRI of the braintem, the deep nuclei and their connections in the Parkinsonian syndromes.

  • Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) has a significant impact on the quality of life since it can lead to motor deficits (paralysis) and sensory deficits. In the world, about 2.5 million people live with SCI (http://www.campaignforcure.org ). To date, there is no consensus for full rehabilitative cure in SCI, although many therapeutic approaches have shown benefits [61] , [63] . It is thus of great importance to develop tools that will improve the characterization of spinal lesions as well as the integrity of remaining spinal tracts to eventually establish better prognosis after spinal injury. We have already started to be active in this domain with our collaborators at Inserm U678 (H. Benali) and CRSN/Faculté de médecine Université de Montréal (Pr. S. Rossignol).