Altered white matter connectivity associated with intergyral brain disorganization in hemiplegic cerebral palsy

In this study, we assess the relationship between the structural integrity of sensorimotor projection fibers and the integrity of intergyral association white matter connections in children with HCP. Diffusion tensor imaging was performed in 10 children with HCP and 16 typically developing children. We estimated the regional and global white-matter connectivity using a region-of-interest (ROI) based approach and a whole-brain gyral-based parcellation method. Using the ROI-based approach, we tracked the spinothalamic (STh), thalamocortical (ThC), corticospinal (CST), and sensorimotor U- (SMU) fibers. Using the whole-brain parcellation method, we tracked the short-, middle-, and long-range association fibers. We observed for the more affected hemisphere of children with HCP: (i) an increase of axial diffusivity (AD), mean diffusivity (MD), and radial diffusivity (RD) for the STh and ThC fibers; (ii) a decrease of fractional anisotropy (FA) and an increase in AD, MD, and RD for the CST and SMU fibers; (iii) a decrease of FA for the short-range association fibers; (iv) a decrease of FA and an increase in AD, MD, and RD for the middle- and long-range association fibers; and (v) an association between the integrity of sensorimotor projection and intergyral association fibers. Our findings indicate that altered structural integrity of the sensorimotor projection fibers disorganizes the intergyral association white matter connections among local and distant regions in children with H...
Source: Neuroscience - Category: Neuroscience Source Type: research