Table 1.

Summary of the results for five control subjects (only mean and STD are provided) and five MS subjects. Quantitative results for tissue damage load (TDL), mean tissue damage score (MTDS) and lesion load (LL), are calculated using Eqs. [2] - [4]. Data of interest not only include characteristics determined by the “tail” of low R2* values located outside 1.96 peak width from peak center, but also the peak widths and center R2* relaxation rate constants. The nature of “abnormal” tissue in the control subjects is most likely due to variability of tissue structure, though errors in evaluating of tissue R2* values could also contribute to this effect. Note that practically all the scores in MS subjects are significantly different as compared to these “normal” values. p-values are determined with respect to corresponding distribution in normal subjects: (*) - p<0.05; (**) - p<0.01; (***) - p<0.001. Correlation coefficients for MTDS, peak width and peak center represent Pearson correlation coefficients. (⁺) While TDL and LL also increase in concert with worsening disability on EDSS, the relationships are strongly non-linear, we, therefore, calculated Spearman rank correlation coefficients for the association between TDL and LL with EDSS.

Subject	TDL(mm3)	LL(mm3)	MTDS	peak width(s-1)	peak center(s-1)	EDSS
Control Mean	483	1913	0.251	3.39	16.74	-
Control STD	104	314	0.020	0.32	0.80	-
1 (RRMS)	797*	2706	0.295	3.61	15.88	2
2 (RRMS)	905*	3390*	0.267	3.33	16.99	3
3 (RRMS)	2698***	8022***	0.336*	4.00	17.60	4
4 (RRMS)	6479***	16509***	0.392**	3.93	15.00	6
5 (SPMS)	23204***	35853***	0.647***	5.10**	15.96	7
Correlation with EDSS	1.0+	1.0+	0.86	0.83	-0.41