Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune disease affecting the brain and the spinal cord. Conventional MRI imaging mainly assesses the lesion load - the "tip of the iceberg" of cerebral tissue damage in MS. Up to now, microstructural tissue changes outside the lesions are not taken into account in clinical studies targeting MS. This project aims to quantify longitudinal changes in normal appearing cerebral tissue in MS patients using quantitative MRI techniques and to assess the relationship of tissue remodelling over time with changes of the clinical / cognitive status. With this method, we aim to establish novel clinically relevant imaging parameters assessing microstructural tissue damage for future clinical MS studies.

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