Population

A total of 151 patients (101 RRMS, 50 PMS) and 20 sex- and age-matched HC were prospectively enrolled. The PMS population included both primary (n = 32) and secondary (n = 18) PMS patients. Inclusion criteria for patients were (I) age 18–70 years (II) MS diagnosis according to the 2017 revisions to McDonald’s criteria (Thompson et al., 2018a) and (III) Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS; Kurtzke, 1983) score ≤ 7. For HC, only the criterion (I) was required. Exclusion criteria for all subjects were (I) other neurological comorbidities and (II) contraindications to MRI.

All patients underwent neurological examination with the assessment of the EDSS score. On the same day, all subjects underwent brain MRI. The study was approved by the local ethical committees and written informed consent was obtained from all participants according to the Declaration of Helsinki.