MR tractography for the evaluation of functional recovery from lenticulostriate infarcts

Abstract

The corticospinal tracts (CSTs) crossed the lenticulostriate artery territory exclusively at the posterosuperior quadrant, and the degree of CST involvement within the infarcts was directly related to stroke severity and functional recovery.

Acute Damage to the Posterior Limb of the Internal Capsule on Diffusion Tensor Tractography as an Early Imaging Predictor of Motor Outcome after Stroke

“…Similarly, another study reported that the degree of CST involvement on DTT within 3 days of stroke onset was strongly correlated with the severity of motor deficit and functional recovery at 3 months in patients with an acute lenticulostriate infarct. 19 To our knowledge, ours is the first prospective study to examine consecutive patients with DTT within the first 12 hours after MCA stroke onset.…”

“…Moreover, the decrease in mean FA values correlated positively with the motor deficit at 30 days after stroke. 19 Combined involvement of the PLIC and CS or CR at day 30 was not significantly associated with decreased FA indexes (P ϭ 0.445 for the interaction between PLIC and CS; P ϭ .830 for PLIC and CR). Hence, axonal damage reflected as decreased FA ratio values at day 30 was also secondary to PLIC damage.…”

“…Recently, some DTI studies have reported that motor outcome could be predicted by using anatomic relationships between the stroke lesion and CST damage on DTT in patients with intracerebral hemorrhage, CR infarct, and lacunar infarcts. [15][16][17][18][19][20]35 Jang et al 17 demonstrated that DTT performed at an early stage of pontine infarct (mean DTT scanning, 15 days; range, 5-30 days) is useful for predicting motor outcome. Similarly, another study reported that the degree of CST involvement on DTT within 3 days of stroke onset was strongly correlated with the severity of motor deficit and functional recovery at 3 months in patients with an acute lenticulostriate infarct.…”

“…6,14 Recently, these findings were complemented by DTI studies that have demonstrated the usefulness of DTT for predicting poor motor outcome when infarct involves the CST. [15][16][17][18][19][20] DTI enables in vivo visualization and quantification of microstructural damage to white matter tracts. 21 DTT uses data acquired through DTI to reconstruct a 3D macroscopic orientation of the white matter fibers that enables the specific topographic relation between lesion location and CST fibers to be evaluated.…”

Utility of Fractional Anisotropy Imaging Analyzed by Statistical Parametric Mapping for Detecting Minute Brain Lesions in Chronic-Stage Patients Who Had Mild or Moderate Traumatic Brain Injury

“…23,29) DTI can be used to measure diffusion anisotropy in vivo, and is a promising method for noninvasive detection of the degree of fiber damage in various disease processes affecting the white matter. 11,19) Fractional anisotropy (FA) as determined with DTI has been used to evaluate traumatic axonal injury, and the clinical utility of this technique has been described. 2) T2*GRE imaging is superior to T 1 -weighted, T 2 -weighted, and FLAIR imaging for the detection of hemorrhagic DAI lesions.…”