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AJNR - American Journal of Neuroradiology

Published ahead of print on September 24, 2007
doi: 10.3174/ajnr.A0676

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Diffusion Tensor MR Imaging Tractography of the Pyramidal Tracts Correlates with Clinical Motor Function in Children with Congenital Hemiparesis

O.A. Glenn^a, N.A. Ludeman^a, J.I. Berman^a, Y.W. Wu^b, Y. Lu^a, A.I. Bartha^b, D.B. Vigneron^a, S.W. Chung^a, D.M. Ferriero^b, A.J. Barkovich^a,b and R.G. Henry^a

^a Department of Radiology, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, Calif
^b Department of Neurology and Pediatrics, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, Calif

View larger version (38K): [in this window] [in a new window]   Fig 1. Color-coded representation of fractional anisotropy in the pyramidal tracts of a control subject (A), a patient with mild left hemiparesis (B), a patient with moderate left hemiparesis (C), and a patient with severe left hemiparesis (D). Lower fractional anisotropy values are seen in the affected pyramidal tract compared with the unaffected tract of the patients with moderate and severe hemiparesis. The patient with mild hemiparesis and the control subject show no appreciable asymmetry. Although the entire tract is shown from the level of the cerebral peduncle to the centrum semiovale, the analysis was limited to that portion of the pyramidal tract between the posterior limb of the internal capsule (outlined in green) and the cerebral peduncle (see Methods).

View larger version (15K): [in this window] [in a new window]   Fig 2. Comparison of diffusion parameters in affected and unaffected tracts of the patients with normative curves. Fractional anisotropy (A), transverse diffusivity (B), Dav (C), and parallel diffusivity (D) are plotted against age for the patients with mild hemiparesis (circles), those with moderate hemiparesis (squares), and those with severe hemiparesis (triangles). Both affected (solid symbol) and unaffected (open symbol) pyramidal tract diffusion values are plotted for each patient. Values are compared with the normative curves (dashed curve) of the natural logarithm of the diffusion metric versus age (see Methods).