Cortical reorganization in multiple sclerosis

Abstract

Functional MRI (fMRI) is a new method promoting the study of brain functions and relationships between physiological activity and anatomical location. At present cortical reorganization is regarded as one of possible factors of recovery or maintenance of function in the presence of irreversible brain damage in multiple sclerosis (MS). Functional cortical changes have been demonstrated in all MS phenotypes using different fMRI paradigms, but the majority of studies were focused on the motor system. It was shown variability of functional reorganization of the motorcortex in MS depending on the stage of the disease. Cortical reorganization plays a role in limiting the impact of structural damage in MS; conversely, failure of these plastic mechanisms may cause irreversible disability upon the disease progression. Future dynamic fMRI studies will allow to access changes of functional brain activity in different disease severity and different extent of regress of MS symptoms. The improvement of cortical adaptive plasticity represents a potentially significant direction of rehabilitation in MS patients.

Keywords

• multiple sclerosis
• cortical reorganization
• functional mri