Dear All,

We are dealing with MPRAGE data acquired at a 3.0T MRI scanner and analyzed with FS 3.0.5.

Images belong to a group of Multiple Sclerosis patients.

 

We would like to ask some questions and we apologize for the fact that we have quite a number of them J

 

First, regarding measurements coming from mris_anatomical_stats:

1)       What is exactly included in total WM volume?

2)       Is total WM volume  the sum of left and right WM hemisphere or just the WM volume from the side we specify (but if this is case, why we got the same values after running mris_anatomical_stats for lh and rh hemisphere) ?

3)       Since there are many WM lesions (with many juxta-cortical lesions that need manual editing), we were wondering if total WM volume does include the WM hypointensities as well or those are just treated separately.

4)       Does the total GM volume include the volume of the subcortical structures and cerebellum or just refer to the cortical GM volume?

 

Second, some other questions on the aseg.stat file:

1)       What is exactly included in CSF label? Does it comprehend the CSF in the ventricles + the sulcal CSF, or just the the sulcal CSF?

2)       Does the volume of the WM hypointensities manually edited (which happens very often with MS lesions close to the cortex) end up in the WM hypointensities volume?

 

Last, as we are interested in measuring subjects’ BPF, we were wondering which would be the best way to compute it?

 

Thanks a lot in advance,

 

Antonio

 

 

Antonio Gallo, MD

NIB-NINDS-NIH

10 Center Drive

Building 10, Room 5B16

Bethesda, MD, 20892 - USA

ph #: 001-301-402.6391

fax #: 001-301-402.0373

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