Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) can evaluate microstructural tissue damage in the optic radiation (OR) of patients with clinically isolated syndrome (CIS), early relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis and neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorders (NMOSD). Different post-processing techniques, e.g. tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS) and probabilistic tractography, exist to quantify this damage. To evaluate the capacity of TBSS-based atlas region-of-interest (ROI) combination with 1) posterior thalamic radiation ROIs from the Johns Hopkins University atlas (JHU-TBSS), 2) Juelich Probabilistic ROIs (JUEL-TBSS) and tractography methods using 3) ConTrack (CON-PROB) and 4) constrained spherical deconvolution tractography (CSD-PROB) to detect OR damage in patients with a) NMOSD with prior ON (NMOSD-ON), b) CIS and early RRMS patients with ON (CIS/RRMS-ON) and c) CIS and early RRMS patients without prior ON (CIS/RRMS-NON) against healthy controls (HCs). Twenty-three NMOSD-ON, 18 CIS/RRMS-ON, 21 CIS/RRMS-NON, and 26 HCs underwent 3 T MRI. DTI data analysis was carried out using JUEL-TBSS, JHU-TBSS, CON-PROB and CSD-PROB. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) and visual acuity testing was performed in the majority of patients and HCs. Absolute OR fractional anisotropy (FA) values differed between all methods but showed good correlation and agreement in Bland-Altman analysis. OR FA values between NMOSD and HC differed throughout the methodologies (p-values ranging from p < 0.0001 to 0.0043). ROC-analysis and effect size estimation revealed higher AUCs and R2 for CSD-PROB (AUC = 0.812; R2 = 0.282) and JHU-TBSS (AUC = 0.756; R2 = 0.262), compared to CON-PROB (AUC = 0.742; R2 = 0.179) and JUEL-TBSS (AUC = 0.719; R2 = 0.161). Differences between CIS/RRMS-NON and HC were only observable in CSD-PROB (AUC = 0.796; R2 = 0.094). No significant differences between CIS/RRMS-ON and HC were detected by any of the methods. All DTI post-processing techniques facilitated the detection of OR damage in patient groups with severe microstructural OR degradation. The comparison of distinct disease groups by use of different methods may lead to different - either false-positive or false-negative - results. Since different DTI post-processing approaches seem to provide complementary information on OR damage, application of distinct methods may depend on the relevant research question.

The introduction of a third‐dose vaccination along with new variants of concern raises questions regarding serology and T‐cell responses in patients with multiple sclerosis (pwMS) treated with B‐cell depletion who develop attenuated humoral response to vaccines. The aim of this study was to longitudinally evaluate humoral and cellular response to SARS‐CoV‐2 mRNA vaccine in ocrelizumab‐treated pwMS before and following a third vaccine dose. Following the third vaccine dose, patients who are low or nonresponders following initial vaccination did not increase antibody titers. In healthy controls and ocrelizumab‐treated pwMS, cellular response decreased 6 months after initial vaccination and increased significantly after the third dose. ANN NEUROL 2022;91:796–800

Information transmission within the visual system is highly organized with the ultimate goal of accomplishing higher-order, complex visuo-spatial and object identity processing. Perception is dependent on the intactness of the entire system and damage at each stage – in the eye itself, the visual pathways, or within cortical processing - might result in perception disturbance. Herein we will review several examples of lesions along the visual system, from the retina, via the optic nerve and chiasm and through the occipital cortex. We will address their clinical manifestation and their cortical substrate. The latter will be studied via functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI), enabling cortical and white matter mapping of the human brain. In contrast to traditional signal recording, these procedures enable simultaneous evaluation of the entire brain network engaged when subjects undertake a particular task or evaluate the entirety of associated white matter pathways. These examples provided will highlight the importance of using advanced imaging methods to better understand visual pathologies. We will argue that clinical manifestation cannot always be explained solely by structural damage and a functional view is required to understand the clinical symptom. In such cases we recommend using advanced imaging methods to better understand the neurological basis of visual phenomena.