The comorbidity and cognition in multiple sclerosis (CCOMS) neuroimaging protocol: Study rationale, MRI acquisition, and minimal image processing pipelines

Md Nasir Uddin; Teresa D Figley; Jennifer Kornelsen; Erin L Mazerolle; Carl A Helmick; Christopher B O'Grady; Salina Pirzada; Ronak Patel; Sean Carter; Kaihim Wong; Marco R Essig; Lesley A Graff; James M Bolton; James J Marriott; Charles N Bernstein; John D Fisk; Ruth Ann Marrie; Chase R Figley

doi:10.3389/fnimg.2022.970385

The comorbidity and cognition in multiple sclerosis (CCOMS) neuroimaging protocol: Study rationale, MRI acquisition, and minimal image processing pipelines

Front Neuroimaging. 2022 Aug 24:1:970385. doi: 10.3389/fnimg.2022.970385. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Md Nasir Uddin^{1

2

3}, Teresa D Figley^{1

2

3}, Jennifer Kornelsen^{1

2

3

4}, Erin L Mazerolle⁵, Carl A Helmick⁶, Christopher B O'Grady⁷, Salina Pirzada^{3

4}, Ronak Patel⁸, Sean Carter^{1

2

3}, Kaihim Wong^{1

2

3}, Marco R Essig^{1

2}, Lesley A Graff⁸, James M Bolton⁹, James J Marriott¹⁰, Charles N Bernstein¹⁰, John D Fisk¹¹, Ruth Ann Marrie^{10

12}, Chase R Figley^{1

2

3

4}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Radiology, Max Rady College of Medicine, Rady Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada.
² Division of Diagnostic Imaging, Health Sciences Centre Winnipeg, Winnipeg, MB, Canada.
³ Neuroscience Research Program, Kleysen Institute for Advanced Medicine, Health Sciences Centre Winnipeg, Winnipeg, MB, Canada.
⁴ Department of Physiology and Pathophysiology, Max Rady College of Medicine, Rady Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada.
⁵ Department of Psychology, St. Francis Xavier University, Antigonish, NS, Canada.
⁶ Division of Geriatric Medicine, Department of Psychiatry, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada.
⁷ Department of Anesthesia and Biomedical Translational Imaging Centre, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada.
⁸ Department of Clinical Health Psychology, Max Rady College of Medicine, Rady Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada.
⁹ Department of Psychiatry, Max Rady College of Medicine, Rady Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada.
¹⁰ Department of Internal Medicine, Max Rady College of Medicine, Rady Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada.
¹¹ Nova Scotia Health Authority and the Departments of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, and Medicine, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada.
¹² Department of Community Health Sciences, Max Rady College of Medicine, Rady Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada.

Abstract

The Comorbidity and Cognition in Multiple Sclerosis (CCOMS) study represents a coordinated effort by a team of clinicians, neuropsychologists, and neuroimaging experts to investigate the neural basis of cognitive changes and their association with comorbidities among persons with multiple sclerosis (MS). The objectives are to determine the relationships among psychiatric (e.g., depression or anxiety) and vascular (e.g., diabetes, hypertension, etc.) comorbidities, cognitive performance, and MRI measures of brain structure and function, including changes over time. Because neuroimaging forms the basis for several investigations of specific neural correlates that will be reported in future publications, the goal of the current manuscript is to briefly review the CCOMS study design and baseline characteristics for participants enrolled in the three study cohorts (MS, psychiatric control, and healthy control), and provide a detailed description of the MRI hardware, neuroimaging acquisition parameters, and image processing pipelines for the volumetric, microstructural, functional, and perfusion MRI data.

Keywords: MRI; brain; cognition; comorbidities; multiple sclerosis; neuroimaging.