White matter changes in primary dystonia determined by 2D distribution analysis of diffusion tensor images

Purpose: To determine brain tissue affected by dystonia by making group comparison of parameter‐based diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) distributions of patients with control subjects. A 2D distribution analysis of mean diffusivity and fractional anisotropy index was used for modeling brain tissues according to the inherent diffusion characteristics. Materials and Methods: Seven affected carriers of the DYT1 dystonia mutation and eight healthy control subjects were imaged for a previous study. We employed a 2D distribution analysis of all the diffusion voxels and a four compartmental brain model for group comparison of the dystonia subjects and controls. Results: Our analysis showed disease involvement in the white matter of the patients. Excellent tissue characterization was achieved automatically using the 2D distribution analysis based on a physical brain model. Conclusion: This 2D analysis implicated white matter in dystonia and could be useful as a screening tool in diseases with unknown pathologies. J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2013;37:59–66. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.