From Success Stories in Scientific Visualization Wiki
Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is a neurodegenerative disorder that affects hundreds of thousands of Americans; understanding its progression better could lead to new treatments that could reduce the devastating effects of the disease. The image on the right shows orange spots where neural "wires" or fibers-at-risk (FAR) for the brain visualized on the top pierce the midplane of the brain. Fibers at risk are those that pass through lesions. We hypothesize that these piercing points anticipate where new pathology will develop – in the bottom image existing pathology is shown in green. The view on the left is from above; fluid-filled regions are shown in blue, lesions are shown in yellow, and fibers that pass through lesions in shades of red. Continued research is needed to test our hypothesis and to extend and refine this fibers-at-risk approach to better understand MS and other diseases.
J.H. Simon, S. Zhang, D.H. Laidlaw, D.E. Miller, M. Brown, J. Corboy, D. Singel, J. Bennett, "Strategy for detecting neuronal fibers at risk for neurodegeneration in earliest MS by streamtube tractography at 3T." In Proceedings of ISMRM, Miami, FL, May 2005.
