Open AccessWhite matter degeneration in remote brain areas of stroke patients with motor impairment due to basal ganglia lesions
Author(s) -
Cao Xuejin,
Wang Zan,
Chen Xiaohui,
Liu Yanli,
Wang Wei,
Abdoulaye Idriss Ali,
Ju Shenghong,
Yang Xi,
Wang Yuancheng,
Guo Yijing
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
human brain mapping
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.005
H-Index - 191
eISSN - 1097-0193
pISSN - 1065-9471
DOI - 10.1002/hbm.25583
Subject(s) - diffusion mri , white matter , basal ganglia , fractional anisotropy , stroke (engine) , lesion , neuroscience , brainstem , neuroimaging , medicine , fiber tract , psychology , pathology , magnetic resonance imaging , central nervous system , radiology , mechanical engineering , engineering
Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) studies have revealed distinct white matter (WM) characteristics of the brain following diseases. Beyond the lesion‐symptom maps, stroke is characterized by extensive structural and functional alterations of brain areas remote to local lesions. Here, we further investigated the structural changes over a global level by using DTI data of 10 ischemic stroke patients showing motor impairment due to basal ganglia lesions and 11 healthy controls. DTI data were processed to obtain fractional anisotropy (FA) maps, and multivariate pattern analysis was used to explore brain regions that play an important role in classification based on FA maps. The WM structural network was constructed by the deterministic fiber‐tracking approach. In comparison with the controls, the stroke patients showed FA reductions in the perilesional basal ganglia, brainstem, and bilateral frontal lobes. Using network‐based statistics, we found a significant reduction in the WM subnetwork in stroke patients. We identified the patterns of WM degeneration affecting brain areas remote to the lesions, revealing the abnormal organization of the structural network in stroke patients, which may be helpful in understanding of the neural mechanisms underlying hemiplegia.