ObjectiveTo explore the correlation between cognitive function and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) in children with self-limited epilepsy with centrotemporal spikes (SelECTS). Methods A total of 28 children with SelECTS who visited our hospital from June 2020 to December 2022 were selected as the SelECTS group. An additional 28 healthy children of similar age and gender were selected as the control group. Cognitive function was assessed using the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC). The SelECTS group also underwent cranial DTI. The results of the WISC were then combined with DTI values for correlation analysis. Results Children in the SelECTS group exhibited varying degrees of cognitive deficits. Their full-scale IQ and verbal IQ were significantly lower than those of the control group (P<0.05). Specific cognitive domains, including classification, verbal comprehension, block design, knowledge, and comprehension, also showed significantly lower scores compared to the control group (P<0.05). DTI revealed significant microstructural changes in multiple regions of interest in the SelECTS group (P<0.05), and these changes were correlated with the results of several cognitive function tests. Conclusion Children with SelECTS have certain cognitive deficits. There is evidence of occult damage in brain white matter, and cognitive function is correlated with damage in specific brain regions.
This study aims to detect early changes of kidney in patients with primary hypertension by 3.0 T functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). 26 patients with primary hypertension (hypertension group) and 33 healthy volunteers (control group) underwent conventional and functional magnetic resonance scans, which included blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) MRI, diffusion weighted imaging (DWI) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). We measured renal cortical thickness (CT), parenchymal thickness (PT), and functional values of renal cortex and medulla including R2* value, apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) value and fractional anisotropy (FA) value in each group, and then calculated the cortical/parenchymal thickness ratio (CPR). Compared with those in the control group, CT and CPR in hypertension group were larger (P<0.01), cortical and medullar R2* values increased (P<0.01) whereas medullar FA values decreased (P<0.05). It could be well concluded that noninvasive 3.0 T functional MRI would have important clinical significance in identifying early abnormalities of kidney in hypertension patients.
The study aims to investigate whether there is difference in pre-treatment white matter parameters in treatment-resistant and treatment-responsive schizophrenia. Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) was acquired from 60 first-episode drug-naïve schizophrenia (39 treatment-responsive and 21 treatment-resistant schizophrenia patients) and 69 age- and gender-matched healthy controls. Imaging data was preprocessed via FSL software, then diffusion parameters including fractional anisotropy (FA), mean diffusivity (MD), axial diffusivity (AD) and radial diffusivity (RD) were extracted. Besides, structural network matrix was constructed based on deterministic fiber tracking. The differences of diffusion parameters and topology attributes between three groups were analyzed using analysis of variance (ANOVA). Compared with healthy controls, treatment-responsive schizophrenia showed altered white matter mainly in anterior thalamus radiation, splenium of corpus callosum, cingulum bundle as well as superior longitudinal fasciculus. While treatment-resistant schizophrenia patients showed white matter abnormalities in anterior thalamus radiation, cingulum bundle, fornix and pontine crossing tract relative to healthy controls. Treatment-resistant schizophrenia showed more severe white matter abnormalities in anterior thalamus radiation compared with treatment-responsive patients. There was no significant difference in white matter network topological attributes among the three groups. The performance of support vector machine (SVM) showed accuracy of 63.37% in separating the two patient subgroups (P = 0.04). In this study, we showed different patterns of white matter alterations in treatment-responsive and treatment-resistant schizophrenia compared with healthy controls before treatment, which may help guiding patient identification, targeted treatment and prognosis improvement at baseline drug-naïve state.
ObjectiveChildhood absence epilepsy (CAE) is a common syndrome of idiopathic generalized epilepsy.However, little is known about the brain structural changes in this type of epilepsy, especially in the default mode network (DMN) regions.Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) is a noninvasive techniques that can be used to quantitatively explore structural characteristics of brain.This study aims at using the DTI technique to quantify structural abnormalities of DMN nodes in CAE patients.MethodDTI data were obtained in 14 CAE patients and 13 age-and gender-matched healthy controls.The data were analyzed using voxel-based analysis (VBA) and statistically compared between patients and controls.For the regions with significant difference in group comparison, their DTI metrics were further analyzed with clinical symptoms using Pearson's correlation.ResultsPatients showed significant increase of apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) in left medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) (P=0.042), while fractional anisotropy (FA) value was significantly decreased in left precuneus (P=0.010).In correlation analysis, ADC value from left MPFC was positively associated with duration of epilepsy.Neither the disease duration nor the seizure frequency showed significant correlation with FA values.ConclusionThe findings indicate that structural impairments exist in DMN regions in children suffering from absence epilepsy.This may contribute to understanding the pathological mechanisms and chronic neurological deficits of this disorder.
Present study used diffusion tensor image and tractography to construct brain white matter networks of 15 cerebral palsy infants and 30 healthy infants that matched for age and gender. After white matter network analysis, we found that both cerebral palsy and healthy infants had a small-world topology in white matter network, but cerebral palsy infants exhibited abnormal topological organization: increased shortest path length but decreased normalize clustering coefficient, global efficiency and local efficiency. Furthermore, we also found that white matter network hub regions were located in the left cuneus, precuneus, and left posterior cingulate gyrus. However, some abnormal nodes existed in the frontal, temporal, occipital and parietal lobes of cerebral palsy infants. These results indicated that the white matter networks for cerebral palsy infants were disrupted, which was consistent with previous studies about the abnormal brain white matter areas. This work could help us further study the pathogenesis of cerebral palsy infants.
ObjectiveTo study the relationship between brain white matter fiber occult lesions and P100 wave latency of visual evoked potential (VEP) in neuromyelitis optica (NMO) patients by diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). MethodsTwenty patients with NMO who were treated between July 2008 and April 2009 were selected as the trial group. According to the VEP test, the latency of P100 wave was prolonged, the NMO patients were divided into VEP abnormal group (trial group 1) and VEP normal group (trial group 2). Twenty healthy adult volunteers served as the control group. The DTI examination in brain was done to measure the fractional anisotropy (FA) value of optic nerve (FAn), optic tract (FAt), and optic radiation (FAr);and the mean diffusivity (MD) value of optic nerve (MDn), optic tract (MDt), and optic radiation (MDr). The FA, MD, and P100 wave latency were compared between groups, and the correlation between MD, FA, and P100 wave latency of NMO were analyzed. ResultsIn the 20 NMO patients, 13 patients with VEP had prolonged bilateral P100 wave latency prolongation or no wave (trial group 1), and 7 patients had normal bilateral P100 wave latency (trial group 2). Compared with the trial group 2 and the control group, the FA values were significantly decreased, and the MD values were significantly increased in the trial group 1 (P<0.05). There was no significant difference in the FA and MD values between the trial group 2 and the control group (P>0.05). All FA (FAn, FAt, and FAr) values of each part of NMO patients were negatively correlated with the latency of P100 wave (P<0.05), all MD (MDn, MDt, and MDr) values were positively correlated with the latency of P100 wave (P<0.05). ConclusionDTI could show small pathylogical changes in the white matter fibers of visual pathway, and there is a correlation between DTI and VEP in NMO, suggesting that a more comprehensive assessment to the condition and prognosis can be made through the VEP in the clinical indicators.
This paper is aimed to analyze the topological properties of structural brain networks in depressive patients with and without anxiety and to explore the neuropath logical mechanisms of depression comorbid with anxiety. Diffusion tensor imaging and deterministic tractography were applied to map the white matter structural networks. We collected 20 depressive patients with anxiety (DPA), 18 depressive patients without anxiety (DP), and 28 normal controls (NC) as comparative groups. The global and nodal properties of the structural brain networks in the three groups were analyzed with graph theoretical methods.The result showed that ① the structural brain networks in three groups showed small-world properties and highly connected global hubs predominately from association cortices; ② DP group showed lower local efficiency and global efficiency compared to NC group, whereas DPA group showed higher local efficiency and global efficiency compared to NC group; ③ significant differences of network properties (clustering coefficient, characteristic path lengths, local efficiency, global efficiency) were found between DPA and DP groups; ④ DP group showed significant changes of nodal efficiency in the brain areas primarily in the temporal lobe and bilateral frontal gyrus, compared to DPA and NC groups. The analysis indicated that the DP and DPA groups showed nodal properties of the structural brain networks, compared to NC group. Moreover, the two diseased groups indicated an opposite trend in the network properties. The results of this study may provide a new imaging index for clinical diagnosis for depression comorbid with anxiety.
This study aims to determine the salient brain regions with abnormal changes in white matter structures from diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) images of the patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE), and to discriminate the patients with TLE from normal controls (NCs). Firstly, the DTI images from 50 subjects (28 NCs and 22 TLE) were acquired. Secondly, the four measures including the fractional anisotropy (FA), the mean diffusivity (MD), the axial diffusivity (AD) and the radial diffusivity (RD) were calculated. Thirdly, the tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS) was adopted to extract the measures in brain regions with significant differences between the two compared groups. Fourthly, the obtained measures were used as input features of the support vector machine (SVM) for classification, and the support vector machine-recursive feature elimination (SVM-RFE) was compared with the support vector machine-tract-based spatial statistics (SVM-TBSS) method. Finally, the essential brain regions and their spatial distribution were analyzed and discussed. The experimental results showed that the FA measures of the TLE group decreased significantly in the corpus callosum, superior longitudinal fasciculus, corona radiata, external capsule, internal capsule, inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus, fasciculus uncinatus and sagittal stratum, which were nearly bilaterally distributed, while the MD and RD increased significantly in most of these brain regions of the TLE group. Although the AD also increased, the differences were not statistically significant. The SVM-TBSS classifier obtained accuracies of 82%, 76% and 76% using the FA, MD and RD for classification, respectively, and 80% using combined measures. The SVM-RFE classifier obtained accuracies of 90%, 90% and 92% using the FA, MD and RD respectively, while the highest accuracy was 100% using combined measures. These results demonstrated that the SVM-RFE outperformed the SVM-TBSS, and the dominant characteristic influencing classification in brain regions were in associative and commissural fibers. These results illustrated that the measures of DTI images could reveal the abnormal changes in white matter structure of patients with TLE, providing effective information to clarify its pathological mechanism, localize the focus and diagnose automatically.
Objective To investigate the pathological mechanism of epileptic comorbid sleep disorder by analyzing the changes of cerebral white matter diffusion tensor in patients with sleep disorder with negative magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) epilepsy based on the method of tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS). Methods MRI negative epilepsy patients comorbid sleep disorder who were epileptic patients treated l in China-Japan Union Hospital of Jilin University from January 2020 to December 2022 completed the Epworth sleepiness scale (ESS) and Pittsburgh sleep quality index (PSQI) tests, and those who complained of sleep disorder and PSQI index ≥11 were monitored by nighttime polysomnography (PSG) and those with objective sleep disorder confirmed by PSG were included in the epilepsy comorbid sleep disorder group. Healthy volunteers with matching gender, age, education were included in the health control group. Diffusion tensor image ( DTI) was collected for all subjects by using a 3.0T magnetic resonance scanner. Diffusion parameters were compared between the two groups using TBSS. Results This study included 36 epilepsy patients comorbid sleep disorder and 35 healthy volunteers. epilepsy patients comorbid sleep disorder showed significantly lower fraction anisotropy (FA) (P<0.05) and significantly higher mean diffusivity (MD) (P<0.05) than the health control group . Brain regions with statistical differences in FA reduction included middle peduncle of cerebellum, genu of corpus callosum, body of corpus callosum, splenium of corpus callosum, anterior corona radiata, external capsule and right posterior thalamic radiation.Brain regions with statistical differences in MD degradation included genu of corpus callosum, body of corpus callosum, anterior limb of internal capsule, anterior corona radiata, superior corona radiata, external capsule and right posterior limb of internal capsul. Conclusion Patients with epilepsy comorbidities with sleep disorders have widespread and symmetric white matter damage.The white matter damage is concentrated in the front of the brain.