# Learning Myelin Content in Multiple Sclerosis from Multimodal MRI through Adversarial Training

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1804.08039 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.08039/

## Key facts

- Cited by 7 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 21 Apr 2018.

## Built on by (most cited first, 7 of 7)

- [Conversion Between CT and MRI Images Using Diffusion and Score-Matching Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.12104/) (2022)
- [Applications of Deep Learning Techniques for Automated Multiple Sclerosis Detection Using Magnetic Resonance Imaging: A Review](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.04881/) (2021)
- [PASTA: Pathology-Aware MRI to PET Cross-Modal Translation with Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.16942/) (2024)
- [Cross-Modality Neuroimage Synthesis: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.06997/) (2022)
- [CNNs and GANs in MRI-based cross-modality medical image estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.02198/) (2021)
- [Deep learning based domain adaptation for mitochondria segmentation on EM volumes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.10773/) (2022)
- [Translating MRI to PET through Conditional Diffusion Models with Enhanced Pathology Awareness](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.18896/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a demyelinating disease of the central nervous system (CNS). A reliable measure of the tissue myelin content is therefore essential for the understanding of the physiopathology of MS, tracking progression and assessing treatment efficacy. Positron emission tomography (PET) with [11 mboxC] mboxPIB has been proposed as a promising biomarker for measuring myelin content changes in-vivo in MS. However, PET imaging is expensive and invasive due to the injection of a radioactive tracer. On the contrary, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a non-invasive, widely available technique, but existing MRI sequences do not provide, to date, a reliable, specific, or direct marker of either demyelination or remyelination. In this work, we therefore propose Sketcher-Refiner Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) with specifically designed adversarial loss functions to predict the PET-derived myelin content map from a combination of MRI modalities. The prediction problem is solved by a sketch-refinement process in which the sketcher generates the preliminary anatomical and physiological information and the refiner refines and generates images reflecting the tissue myelin content in the human brain. We evaluated the ability of our method to predict myelin content at both global and voxel-wise levels. The evaluation results show that the demyelination in lesion regions and myelin content in normal-appearing white matter (NAWM) can be well predicted by our method. The method has the potential to become a useful tool for clinical management of patients with MS.