NeuroImage最新文献

{"title":"Impaired neural encoding of naturalistic audiovisual speech in autism","authors":"Theo Vanneau , Michael J. Crosse , John J. Foxe , Sophie Molholm","doi":"10.1016/j.neuroimage.2025.121397","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.neuroimage.2025.121397","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Visual cues from a speaker’s face can significantly improve speech comprehension in noisy environments through multisensory integration (MSI)—the process by which the brain combines auditory and visual inputs. Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), however, often show atypical MSI, particularly during speech processing, which may contribute to the social communication difficulties central to the diagnosis. Understanding the neural basis of impaired MSI in ASD, especially during naturalistic speech, is critical for developing targeted interventions. Most neurophysiological studies have relied on simplified speech stimuli (e.g., isolated syllables or words), limiting their ecological validity. In this study, we used high-density EEG and linear encoding and decoding models to assess the neural processing of continuous audiovisual speech in adolescents and young adults with ASD (<em>N</em> = 23) and age-matched typically developing controls (<em>N</em> = 19). Participants watched and listened to naturalistic speech under auditory-only, visual-only, and audiovisual conditions, with varying levels of background noise, and were tasked with detecting a target word. Linear models were used to quantify cortical tracking of the speech envelope and phonetic features. In the audiovisual condition, the ASD group showed reduced behavioral performance and weaker neural tracking of both acoustic and phonetic features, relative to controls. In contrast, in the auditory-only condition, increasing background noise reduced behavioral and model performance similarly across groups. These results provide, for the first time, converging behavioral and neurophysiological evidence of impaired multisensory enhancement for continuous, natural speech in ASD.</div></div><div><h3>Significance Statement</h3><div>In adverse hearing conditions, seeing a speaker's face and their facial movements enhances speech comprehension through a process called multisensory integration, where the brain combines visual and auditory inputs to facilitate perception and communication. However, individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) often struggle with this process, particularly during speech comprehension. Previous findings using simple, discrete stimuli do not fully explain how the processing of continuous natural multisensory speech is affected in ASD. In our study, we used natural, continuous speech stimuli to compare the neural processing of various speech features in individuals with ASD and typically developing (TD) controls, across auditory and audiovisual conditions with varying levels of background noise. Our findings showed no group differences in the encoding of auditory-alone speech, with both groups similarly affected by increasing levels of noise. However, for audiovisual speech, individuals with ASD displayed reduced neural encoding of both the acoustic envelope and the phonetic features, marking neural processing impairment of continuous audiovisual mul","PeriodicalId":19299,"journal":{"name":"NeuroImage","volume":"318 ","pages":"Article 121397"},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2025-07-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144724011","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Deep Diffusion MRI Template (DDTemplate): A Novel Deep Learning Groupwise Diffusion MRI Registration Method for Brain Template Creation.","authors":"Junyi Wang, Xi Zhu, Wei Zhang, Mubai Du, William M Wells, Lauren J O'Donnell, Fan Zhang","doi":"10.1016/j.neuroimage.2025.121401","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2025.121401","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Diffusion MRI (dMRI) is an advanced imaging technique that enables in-vivo tracking of white matter fiber tracts and estimates the underlying cellular microstructure of brain tissues. Groupwise registration of dMRI data from multiple individuals is an important task for brain template creation and investigation of inter-subject brain variability. However, groupwise registration is a challenging task due to the uniqueness of dMRI data that include multi-dimensional, orientation-dependent signals that describe not only the strength but also the orientation of water diffusion in brain tissues. Deep learning approaches have shown successful performance in standard subject-to-subject dMRI registration. However, no deep learning methods have yet been proposed for groupwise dMRI registration. . In this work, we propose Deep Diffusion MRI Template (DDTemplate), which is a novel deep-learning-based method building upon the popular VoxelMorph framework to take into account dMRI fiber tract information. DDTemplate enables joint usage of whole-brain tissue microstructure and tract-specific fiber orientation information to ensure alignment of white matter fiber tracts and whole brain anatomical structures. We propose a novel deep learning framework that simultaneously trains a groupwise dMRI registration network and generates a population brain template. During inference, the trained model can be applied to register unseen subjects to the learned template. We compare DDTemplate with several state-of-the-art registration methods and demonstrate superior performance on dMRI data from multiple cohorts (adolescents, young adults, and elderly adults) acquired from different scanners. Furthermore, as a testbed task, we perform a between-population analysis to investigate sex differences in the brain, using the popular Tract-Based Spatial Statistics (TBSS) method that relies on groupwise dMRI registration. We find that using DDTemplate can increase the sensitivity in population difference detection, showing the potential of our method's utility in real neuroscientific applications.</p>","PeriodicalId":19299,"journal":{"name":"NeuroImage","volume":" ","pages":"121401"},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2025-07-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144732411","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Disrupted Structural Connectivity-Gray Matter Covariance Coupling and Associated Cytoarchitectural and Transcriptomic Profiles in Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder.","authors":"Yajing Long, Nanfang Pan, Song Wang, Kun Qin, Qiuxing Chen, Clara S Vetter, Manpreet K Singh, Alex Fornito, Ying Chen, Qiyong Gong","doi":"10.1016/j.neuroimage.2025.121402","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2025.121402","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has been associated with disrupted axonal connectivity (termed structural connectivity, SC) and altered interregional coupling of gray matter morphometry (termed gray matter covariance, GMC). However, the relationship between SC and GMC in ADHD remains understudied.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>We investigated this relationship by quantifying the coupling between SC and GMC using neuroimaging data from 109 children with ADHD (aged 10.8 ± 2.3) and 105 typically developing controls (aged 11.2 ± 2.4) comparable for age and sex. Publicly accessible cytoarchitectural and transcriptomic datasets were employed to characterize the cellular and molecular correlates of ADHD-related SC-GMC coupling differences, and a machine learning pipeline was used to investigate its potential in classifying children with ADHD.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Children with ADHD showed aberrant SC-GMC coupling patterns in the right putamen, left hippocampus, and ventral attention network compared to controls. Their abnormal SC-GMC coupling patterns were correlated with sensory-fugal gradient of cytohistological variation and spatially associated with gene expression enriched for neurodevelopment-related biological pathways, including neuron projection development. The classification model based on SC-GMC couplings achieved an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) value of 0.67.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>Our findings provide novel insights into atypical couplings between brain gray and white matter structural connectomes in ADHD, their histological and transcriptional correlates, and prospects of using these data to expand clinical phenotyping.</p>","PeriodicalId":19299,"journal":{"name":"NeuroImage","volume":" ","pages":"121402"},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2025-07-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144732412","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Morphological Changes of the Choroid Plexus in the Lateral Ventricle Across the Lifespan: 5551 Subjects from Fetus to Elderly.","authors":"Jiaxin Li, Yuxuan Gao, Yunzhi Xu, Weiying Dai, Yueqin Hu, Xue Feng, Dan Wu, Li Zhao","doi":"10.1016/j.neuroimage.2025.121392","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2025.121392","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>The developmental trajectory and aging process of the choroid plexus (ChP) in humans remain largely unexplored, and normative growth standards for ChP across the lifespan are lacking.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>High-resolution magnetic resonance images were collected from cohorts of 5551 subjects, ranging in age from 21 gestational weeks to 90 years. ChP segmentation was performed using a combination of automated pipeline and manual annotations. The ChP volume, the ratio of ChP to brain parenchyma, and the ratio of ChP to brain ventricle were modeled using linear and quadratic regression. Additional morphological features of the ChP were investigated.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>The absolute and relative volumes of the ChP throughout lifespan were provided, including growth charts and a normative reference table. In addition, the morphological features, including max 3D diameter, flatness, and elongation of the ChP, reveal the turning points of fetal brain developments in the third trimester. Furthermore, the ratio of ChP-to-lateral ventricle, the ratio of ChP-to-brain parenchyma, flatness, and elongation of the ChP reveal characteristics of brain aging beginning at 30 years old. The enhanced ChP segmentation pipeline is available on GitHub: https://github.com/princeleeee/ChP-Seg.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>This study provides a baseline measurement of ChP across the lifespan, which reveals ChP characteristics in brain development and aging.</p>","PeriodicalId":19299,"journal":{"name":"NeuroImage","volume":" ","pages":"121392"},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2025-07-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144732413","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Reproducibility assessment of magnetic resonance spectroscopy of pregenual anterior cingulate cortex across sessions and vendors via the cloud computing platform CloudBrain-MRS","authors":"Runhan Chen ,&nbsp;Meijin Lin ,&nbsp;Jianshu Chen ,&nbsp;Liangjie Lin ,&nbsp;Jiazheng Wang ,&nbsp;Xiaoqing Li ,&nbsp;Jianhua Wang ,&nbsp;Xu Huang ,&nbsp;Ling Qian ,&nbsp;Shaoxing Liu ,&nbsp;Yuan Long ,&nbsp;Di Guo ,&nbsp;Xiaobo Qu ,&nbsp;Haiwei Han","doi":"10.1016/j.neuroimage.2025.121400","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.neuroimage.2025.121400","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (¹H-MRS) has potential in clinical diagnosis and understanding the mechanism of illnesses. However, its application is limited by the lack of standardization in data acquisition and processing across time points and between different magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system vendors. This study examines whether metabolite concentrations obtained from different sessions, scanner models, and vendors can be reliably reproduced and combined for diagnostic analysis-an important consideration for rare disease research. Participants underwent magnetic resonance scanning once on two separate days within one week (one session per day, each including two ¹H-MRS scans without subject movement) on each machine. Absolute metabolite concentrations were analyzed for reliability of within- and between- session using the coefficient of variation (CV), intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) and Bland-Altman (BA) plot, and for reproducibility across the machines using the Pearson correlation coefficient. As for within- and between- session, most of the CV values for a group of all the first or second scans of a session, and from each session were below 20 %, and most of ICCs ranged from moderate (0.4≤ICC&lt;0.59) to excellent (ICC≥0.75), which indicated high reliability. Most of the BA plots had the line of equality between 95 % confidence interval of bias (mean difference), therefore the differences over scanning time could be negligible. Majority of the Pearson correlation coefficients approached 1 with statistical significance (<em>P</em> &lt; 0.001), showing high reproducibility across the three scanners. Additionally, the intra-vendor reproducibility was greater than the inter-vendor ones.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":19299,"journal":{"name":"NeuroImage","volume":"318 ","pages":"Article 121400"},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2025-07-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144724010","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Iterative prior-guided parcellation (iPGP) for capturing inter-subject and inter-nuclei variability in thalamic mapping","authors":"Chaohong Gao ,&nbsp;Xia Wu ,&nbsp;Liang Ma ,&nbsp;Deying Li ,&nbsp;Yufan Wang ,&nbsp;Changlu Guo ,&nbsp;Wen Li ,&nbsp;Haiyan Wang ,&nbsp;Congying Chu ,&nbsp;Kristoffer Hougaard Madsen ,&nbsp;Lingzhong Fan","doi":"10.1016/j.neuroimage.2025.121399","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.neuroimage.2025.121399","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The thalamus, a critical relay station in the brain, consists of multiple nuclei that play essential roles in various brain circuits. Identifying these nuclei is crucial for understanding how thalamic structures influence cognitive functions. However, genetic and environmental factors introduce substantial variability in thalamic parcellation patterns, posing both challenges and opportunities for individualized mapping of thalamic function. This study proposes an iterative prior-guided parcellation (iPGP) framework to construct individualized thalamic parcellations. The iPGP method utilizes the Morel histological atlas as prior guidance, incorporates spatially constrained local diffusion characteristics as features, and employs an iterative framework to optimize an individual-specific parcellation model. As a result, iPGP automatically adapts to individual thalamic contrast variations, producing personalized and anatomically consistent parcellations. Through test-retest assessments, iPGP demonstrated a high degree of intra-subject reproducibility. By evaluating inter-subject and inter-nuclei variability, iPGP exhibited strong adaptability across different age groups while capturing subject-specific and region-specific variability. Furthermore, thalamic parcellations generated by iPGP showed significant associations with adolescent age and adult behavioral-cognitive scores. Our findings suggest that iPGP effectively captures inter-subject and inter-nuclei variability in thalamic parcellation, highlighting its potential for advancing thalamic mapping in exploring brain function.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":19299,"journal":{"name":"NeuroImage","volume":"318 ","pages":"Article 121399"},"PeriodicalIF":4.7,"publicationDate":"2025-07-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144714332","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Corrigendum to \"Emotion processing of facial affect expression in patients with somatic symptom disorder with predominant pain-An EEG-study\" [Neuroimage volume 307 (15 February 2025)/121036].","authors":"Eva Metzen, Mahboobeh Dehghan Nayyeri, Ralf Schäfer, Ulrike Dinger, Matthias Franz, Rüdiger Seitz, Jörg Rademacher","doi":"10.1016/j.neuroimage.2025.121378","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2025.121378","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":19299,"journal":{"name":"NeuroImage","volume":" ","pages":"121378"},"PeriodicalIF":4.7,"publicationDate":"2025-07-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144718235","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"On the use of multi-echo NODDI MRI with released intrinsic diffusivity for the assessment of tissue diffusion and relaxation properties in experimental ischaemic stroke.","authors":"Ezequiel Farrher, Kuan-Hung Cho, Chia-Wen Chiang, Ming-Jye Chen, Sheng-Min Huang, Li-Wei Kuo, Chang-Hoon Choi, N Jon Shah","doi":"10.1016/j.neuroimage.2025.121390","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2025.121390","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The multi-echo neurite orientation dispersion and density imaging (MTE-NODDI) model has been proposed to overcome one of the shortcomings of conventional NODDI, namely the echo time (TE) dependence of the compartmental signal fractions, which stems from the intrinsic differences in the compartmental transverse relaxation times (T2). However, the model continues to be constrained by the limitation of having a fixed, brain-wide intrinsic diffusivity, d. The primary aim of this work is to assess the benefits and shortcomings of using MTE-NODDI to investigate the diffusion and T2 properties of ischaemic stroke tissue following middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAo) in rat models. Given the known alterations in the diffusion properties in ischaemic tissue, a secondary aim is to assess an estimation approach for MTE-NODDI parameters that enables d to be released while also mitigating the consequent model degeneracy. Using the MTE-NODDI parameters, the spatiotemporal evolution of diffusion and T2 properties in ischaemic tissue was characterised from day one to day 23 post-MCAo. The proposed approach enables access to several unique tissue features that would otherwise be obscured by the conventional approach. Importantly, a marked reduction in d was observed, leading to significant changes in other MTE-NODDI parameters compared to the model employing a fixed d. The isotropic signal fraction displayed a significant increase in ischemic tissue, which appears in contradiction with previous works. Regarding the intra- and extra-neurite T2 values, T_2,in and T_2,en, a significant increment was observed at the ischaemic tissue, while the condition T_2,in≥T_2,en displayed a tendency to hold in both tissue types. More generally, some parameters, such as the isotropic signal fraction, the intrinsic diffusivity and both compartmental T2 values, display unique, heterogeneous spatiotemporal evolution, where the core and border zones of the ischaemic tissue show different behaviours. Overall, the newly estimated parameters show greater consistency with analogous estimates reported by published models, and are anticipated to significantly enhance the understanding of tissue properties following ischaemic stroke.</p>","PeriodicalId":19299,"journal":{"name":"NeuroImage","volume":" ","pages":"121390"},"PeriodicalIF":4.7,"publicationDate":"2025-07-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144718237","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Field strength dependence reveals multiple sources of relaxation anisotropy in single and crossing white matter fibers","authors":"Melanie Bauer ,&nbsp;Christian Kremser ,&nbsp;Elke R. Gizewski ,&nbsp;Claudia Lenz ,&nbsp;Christoph Birkl","doi":"10.1016/j.neuroimage.2025.121394","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.neuroimage.2025.121394","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Quantitative magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) parameters depend on the orientation of white matter fibers relative to the main magnetic field. However, the impacts of fiber complexity and field strength remain unclear.</div><div>This study investigated the effects of fiber complexity and field strength on the orientation dependency of the irreversible transverse relaxation rate R₂, the effective transverse relaxation rate R₂* and the reversible transverse relaxation rate R₂’ (= R₂* - R₂) in the human brain. Nine healthy volunteers underwent MRI at 1.5 T and 3 T, allowing the assessment of orientation dependence in single and crossing fibers as well as the evaluation of field strength-dependent and -independent components.</div><div>All relaxation rates, except R₂ at 1.5 T, differed significantly between single and crossing fibers. R₂*, R₂’, and their anisotropies were significantly higher at 3 T compared to 1.5 T. Both field strength-dependent and -independent components showed orientation dependence, exhibiting higher values for fibers perpendicular to the field. Notably, the field strength-independent component of R₂* displayed a unique pattern, reaching a maximum at 45° and a minimum at 85°.</div><div>These findings suggest that both field strength-dependent and -independent components contribute to relaxation anisotropy in white matter, thereby indicating multiple sources of anisotropy. This study provides valuable insights into the complex relationship between white matter fiber orientation, field strength and quantitative MRI parameters, paving the way towards advanced understanding of white matter imaging.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":19299,"journal":{"name":"NeuroImage","volume":"318 ","pages":"Article 121394"},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2025-07-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144718236","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Towards quantitative intensity analysis of conventional T1-weighted images in multiple sclerosis","authors":"Tun Wiltgen ,&nbsp;Julian McGinnis ,&nbsp;Ronja Berg ,&nbsp;Cui Ci Voon ,&nbsp;Oula Puonti ,&nbsp;Katrin Giglhuber ,&nbsp;Carl Ganter ,&nbsp;Claus Zimmer ,&nbsp;Bernhard Hemmer ,&nbsp;Benedikt Wiestler ,&nbsp;Jan Kirschke ,&nbsp;Christine Preibisch ,&nbsp;Mark Mühlau","doi":"10.1016/j.neuroimage.2025.121395","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.neuroimage.2025.121395","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Conventional T1-weighted (T1w) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is commonly used in multiple sclerosis (MS) morphometry and volumetry research. However, arbitrary intensity scales preclude interpretation of signal values across patients, sites, and time. This requires quantitative MRI techniques, which are not always available.</div><div>This study assessed T1w image intensity scaling methods, relying on extracerebral reference regions, for quantitative analysis of brain MRI in MS.</div><div>In total, 701 people with a diagnosis of radiologically isolated syndrome, clinically isolated syndrome, or MS were included. Four intensity scaling strategies were applied: 1) MRI signal modeling, 2) linear scaling with reference regions, 3) z-score standardization, and 4) none (only bias field correction). Methods were evaluated using variance analysis, R1 map comparison, and normal-appearing white matter (NAWM) intensity group comparison, using mean and coefficient of variation (CoV), between low (≤3) and high (&gt;3) expanded disability status scale (EDSS) scores. Statistical analysis was conducted using Pearson’s r, two-sided Welch two-sample <em>t</em>-test, ANCOVA, and Cohen’s d.</div><div>Linear scaling with temporal fatty tissue achieved the most consistent variance reduction and strong correlation with R1 maps (<em>r</em> = 0.84). R1 values in NAWM were significantly lower in people with high compared to low EDSS scores (<em>d</em> = -0.351). Similarly, group differences in mean NAWM intensity of fat-scaled images were significant (<em>d</em> = -0.252). The largest group differences were found in NAWM CoV in bias field-corrected T1w images (<em>d</em> = 0.818).</div><div>Linear scaling with fatty tissue most accurately reproduced the results obtained with R1 maps. Changes in MS NAWM appear to increase intensity variability detectable in conventional T1w images.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":19299,"journal":{"name":"NeuroImage","volume":"318 ","pages":"Article 121395"},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2025-07-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144718239","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}