Synopsis

Keywords: Neuro: Brain

Chronic CNS inflammation in the MS lesion is maintained with pro-inflammatory microglia at the rim of chronic active MS lesions. The presence of iron-laden microglia found at the rim of a subset of chronic active MS lesions affords a substrate to detect these lesions with gradient echo (GRE) MRI. Utilizing different GRE approaches, studies have confirmed that paramagnetic rims lesions (PRL) are specific for MS and associated with multiple pathological features of the disease. Quantification of the temporal change of inflammation within PRL can be harnessed and potentially utilized to evaluate the impact of treatment.