Dr. Field Awarded U.S. Department of Defense Grant for Multiple Sclerosis Imaging Research

Posted on July 2010

Aaron Field, MD PhD, Associate Professor of Radiology, has been awarded a $140,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Defense Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program for his proposal entitled,”Voxel-Wise Time-Series Analysis of Quantitative MRI in Relapsing-Remitting MS: Dynamic Imaging Metrics of Disease Activity Including Pre-lesional Changes.” The objective of the study will be to identify characteristic patterns in several quantitative MRI parameters, based on their distribution in the brain and their changes over time, that presage the development of typical MS lesions, and to determine whether such patterns allow the development of MS lesions to be accurately predicted in advance of their appearance on conventional MRI. The project also promises to answer more fundamental questions regarding the nature of MS and the optimal target and timing of novel treatments. Co-Investigators on the study include Drs. Alexey Samsonov (Radiology), Andrew Alexander (Medical Physics), and John Fleming (Neurology).