Department of Biostatistics Seminar/Workshop Series

Statistical Approaches to the Analysis of Multiple Sclerosis Pathology Using Multisequence MRI

Russell Shinohara, PhD

Assistant Professor of Biostatistics, Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Informatics, University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine

While conventional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is measured in arbitrary intensity units, much work has centered on the development of normalization procedures. In this talk, we describe the state-of-the-art in statistical intensity normalization, which allows us to measure changes across the brain using conventional MRI, providing a promising new tool for large multi-center studies of novel therapeutics and clinical management of multiple sclerosis (MS). We present new methods for quantifying disease activity and tissue damage using our statistical quantitative MRI, derived solely from widely available conventional MRI, and compare these with contrast-enhanced and advanced quantitative MRI modalities. Our preliminary results indicate that statistical quantitative MRI is significantly less costly, less invasive, and yet may provide more precise and sensitive biomarkers for disease-related changes in MS on MRI.