Short-term susceptibility correlations are sensitive to disrupted iron dynamics in multiple sclerosis

Deep gray matter (DGM) iron dyshomeostasis has been linked to neuroinflammation in multiple sclerosis (MS). In the present work, we hypothesized that a novel correlation analysis of magnetic susceptibility co-fluctuations between DGM regions reveals short-term (<1 year) MS-related iron dyshomeostasis that is undetectable with conventional ROI-based methods. Our results showed the correlations-based analysis was more sensitive to MS vs HC group differences than the standard ROI-based approach. A simulation indicated that the MS-related differences may be due to neuroinflammatory-based disruption to normal aging-related iron accumulation. Our methodology may be applied to study neuroinflammatory diseases at short timescales not previously possible.