Extended Data Fig. 10: Quantitative analysis of metabolic imaging for differentiating between active and chronic MS lesions.

a, T2w and T1C images along with the identified ROIs, including active lesions (yellow) and chronic lesions (green). b, Regional average (solid line) and standard deviation (shaded area) of FID spectra in active and chronic lesions. c, Box plots of mI/NAA and Lac levels in active and chronic lesions. Lac levels were shown in arbitrary units. Box plots are represented by median and interquartile range, with ±1.5 interquartile range as whiskers. Significantly increased Lac (237.0%, P < 0.001) as well as reduced mI/NAA (27.9%, P < 0.001) are found in active lesions (n = 228) as compared with chronic lesions (n = 488). Compared with NAWM (n = 1103), the chronic lesion showed significantly increased mI/NAA (37.9%, P < 0.001) and both lesion types showed significantly increased Lac (chronic: 35.8%, P < 0.001; active: 357.8%, P < 0.001). Unpaired two-tailed Student’s t-tests were performed. Abbreviations: T2w, T2-weighted; T1C, T1-weighted contrast-enhanced; ROI, region of interest; NAWM, normal-appearing white matter; NAA, N-acetyl aspartate; mI, myo-inositol; Lac, lactate.