Neuroimaging of corpus callosum in central nervous system demyelinating disorders

Abstract

Corpus callosum (CC) is the largest white matter structure in the brain, consisting of 200-250 million contralateral axonal projections. It is the major commissural pathway connecting the hemispheres of human brain. The pathology of CC includes wide variety of entities that arise from different causes such as congenital, inflammatory, tumoral, degenerative, infectious, etc. This study reviews the most reliable neuroimaging data of human CC in central nervous system (CNS) demyelinating diseases to facilitate the understanding of different pathological entities of the CC and their role in anticipation of probable prognostic findings. After a brief description of normal anatomy and functions of CC, this review examines the most valuable findings obtained using conventional and functional magnetic resonance imaging. It also demonstrates the most well organized findings of how CC features influence prognostic factors of demyelinating disorders, which could have a great value for choosing proper therapy methods. The authors also provided a brief review of other demyelinating disorders which are primarily caused by other pathological factors other than autoimmunity. As a conclusion, the authors showed the importance of CC as an critical part of the brain, which should be explored by different methods of imaging, correspondent to clinical evaluation of CNS demyelinating disorder to widen our knowledge on pathology and clinical patterns of such disorders. Key words:Corpus callosum, central nervous system, demyelinating diseases, neuroimaging, review ABSTRACTArticle history: