Certain sites of brain lesions in MS tied to bowel incontinence

(HealthDay)—Specific locations of cerebral multiple sclerosis lesions appear to be associated with bowel incontinence, according to a study published online Dec. 11 in the Journal of Neuroimaging.

Kilian Frohlich, M.D., from the University Hospital Erlangen in Germany, and colleagues used a voxel-wise lesion symptom mapping analysis to assess associations between bowel incontinence and cerebral multiple sclerosis lesions identified on magnetic resonance imaging of 51 patients.

The researchers found associations between fecal incontinence in a total of 93 lesioned voxels, with 63 voxels located in the gray matter and 30 voxels in the white matter. Specifically, they observed associations between bowel incontinence and lesion clusters in the supramarginal gyrus of the left secondary somatosensory cortex and in the right parahippocampal gyrus and amygdala.

"Our analysis indicates associations between bowel incontinence and lesions in the left supramarginal gyral area contributing to integrating anorectal-visceral sensation and in the right parahippocampal gyrus and amygdala contributing to generating visceral autonomic arousal states," the authors write.