My philosophy is not to keep repeating MRIs unless they are going to have an impact on therapy. The diagnosis seems established. I only perform MRIs to quantitate the burden of disease due to MS over time and to settle questions about whether particular treatments are truly working. It is classic for spinal cord disease to manifest with increased reflexes called hyperreflexia. The brain and spinal cord comprise the central nervous system.
Spinal cord has white matter just like the brain.
Spinal cord attacks can cause profound weakness in both legs, and all limbs, along with sensory loss from a level of the body downward and severe impairment of bowel and bladder function. We call this a myelopathy or myelitis. In theory, there is no difference between spinal cord attacks and brain attacks, just differences in the degree of deficit and patterns of symptoms. A small amount of spinal cord inflammation can cause much more impairment than a comparable amount in the white matter of the brain. Spinal cord attacks can respond to intravenous corticosteroids, just as brain attacks.