Laule, Cornelia

Dr. Laule is interested in understanding the microstructural and pathological determinants which govern T1 and T2 relaxation measures in central nervous system (CNS) tissue. Her primary area of research is MS and she has extensive experience in imaging both in vivo and post mortem MS brain and spinal cord, with emphasis on characterizing myelin. She also collaborates to study many other CNS applications including spinal cord injury, schizophrenia, cerebral malaria, bipolar disorder, leukodystrophies and Huntington’s disease, as well the characterization of normal controls. She is particularly interested in myelin and has future plans to use biochemical analysis and electron microscopy to understand how variations in myelin composition and structure may influence to MRI measures.

Dr. Laule’s quantitative MRI-pathology correlations validated myelin water imaging as a marker for myelin when her histopathological studies revealed a strong correlation between the MR and histopathological measures of myelin.

In one of the few studies examining myelin water serially in the human spinal cord, Dr. Laule’s research showed that people with primary progressive MS showed a 10% decrease in myelin over two years, while the controls remained stable. This suggests that progressive demyelination occurs and myelin water may help follow the pathological processes that contribute to clinical disability in progressive multiple sclerosis.

Dr. Laule’s studies of diffusely abnormal white matter reveal evidence of a primary lipid abnormality with little protein involvement. This raises the possibility of a primary role for lipid in the autoimmune or degenerative etiopathogenesis of MS, studies of which up to now have largely focused on myelin protein immunology and biology. Thus, examining the tissue changes underlying DAWM may identify substrates responsible for disability and progression, which could be a target for future therapies.

Selected papers:

-Myelin Water Atlas: A Template for Myelin Distribution in the Brain.

-Myelin Water Fraction and Intra/Extracellular Water Geometric Mean T2 Normative Atlases for the Cervical Spinal Cord from 3T MRI.

- Water content and myelin water fraction in multiple sclerosis: A T2 relaxation study

- Myelin water imaging in multiple sclerosis: quantitative correlations with histopathology

- Magnetic resonance imaging of myelin

- Two-year study of cervical cord volume and myelin water in primary progressive multiple sclerosis.

- Pathological Basis of Diffusely Abnormal White Matter: Insights from Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Histology

Review paper: Myelin water imaging to detect demyelination and remyelination and its validation in pathology.