New Biomarkers for Multiple Sclerosis
Multiple sclerosis, also known by its acronym MS, is an inflammatory and degenerative brain disease that causes progressive physical and cognitive disabilities over many years. MS kicks in early and remains as the number one neurological problem affecting young adults.
VIP greatly helped in making the brain volumetric analysis quick and feasible.
Tobias Granberg, from the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, used the Virtual Imaging Platform (VIP) to analyse the results of a long-term study of MS effects in the corpus callosum – an area of the brain highly sensitive to the disease. VIP is a science gateway designed to provide access to grid computing and storage resources for medical imaging simulation.
Granberg used VIP to run brain tissue segmentations in MS patients and controls. In total there were 83 examinations to segment, and VIP greatly helped in making the volumetric analysis quick and feasible.
The results show that the volume of the corpus callosum is feasible as a quantitative biomarker for cognitive and physical disability in MS research and in clinical practice.
References
T. Granberg et al. 2014. Multiple Sclerosis Journal. doi: 10.1177/1352458514560928 (abstract)