Western University Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, Canada.
Robarts Research Institute, Canada.
Mult Scler Relat Disord. 2023 Nov;79:105021. doi: 10.1016/j.msard.2023.105021. Epub 2023 Sep 29.
Persons with Multiple Sclerosis (PwMS) have a higher rate of anxiety and depression than the general population. Depression has been associated with clinical relapses; temporal lesions were shown to predict depression severity. Anxiety is considerably understudied. The role of MS lesions in the limbic system is also understudied, partly due to difficulties identifying limbic lesions on standard 1.5 and 3 Tesla MRI.
This is a retrospective study of 23 PwMS who underwent 7T MRI on the same day as completing the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS). MRI was performed on a Siemens 7T MRI Plus and an 8-channel transmit coil with 32 receiver channels operating in pTx mode. MP2RAGE and DIR-SPACE sequences were analyzed to determine the number of lesions within the limbic system.
The median number of lesions in the limbic system was 2.0 (range 0-7). When comparing the presence or absence of lesions in the limbic system, there was a significant relationship with anxiety (X (1, N = 23)=4.44, p = 0.035), but not for depression.
Although only a small sample size, this study provides preliminary evidence that lesions in the limbic system are associated with the presence of anxiety in PwMS. This relationship warrants further investigation.
多发性硬化症患者（PwMS）的焦虑和抑郁发生率高于普通人群。抑郁症与临床复发有关；时间性病变被证明可预测抑郁严重程度。焦虑症的研究则相当不足。MS 病变在边缘系统中的作用也研究不足，部分原因是难以在标准的 1.5 和 3 Tesla MRI 上识别边缘系统病变。
这是一项回顾性研究，纳入了 23 名同一天接受了 7T MRI 检查和完成了医院焦虑和抑郁量表（HADS）评估的 PwMS。MRI 检查在 Siemens 7T MRI Plus 和 8 通道发射线圈上进行，采用 pTx 模式，有 32 个接收通道。分析 MP2RAGE 和 DIR-SPACE 序列，以确定边缘系统内的病变数量。
边缘系统的病变中位数为 2.0（范围 0-7）。当比较边缘系统是否存在病变时，与焦虑症有显著的相关性（X (1, N = 23) = 4.44, p = 0.035），但与抑郁症无关。
尽管样本量较小，但本研究初步提供了证据，表明边缘系统的病变与 PwMS 中焦虑症的存在有关。这种关系需要进一步研究。
