Khader M. Hasan1, Arash Kamali2, Amal Iftikhar1, Larry A. Kramer3, Paul T. Cirino4, Andrew C. Papnicolaou5, Jack M. Fletcher6, Linda Ewing-Cobbs7
1Diagnostic and Interventional Imaging, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, TX, USA; 2Diagnostic and Interventional Imaging, University of Texas Health Science Center at Hosuton, Houston, TX, USA; 3Diagnostic and Interventional Imaging, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Hosuton, TX, USA; 4Psychology, University of Houston, Houston, TX; 5Pediatarics, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, TX, USA; 6Psychology, University of Texas Health Science Center at Hosuton, Houston, TX, USA; 7Pediatrics, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, TX, USA
The human uncinate fasciculus (UF) is the largest cortico-cortical white matter pathway that connects directly the frontal and temporal lobes. The UF has been used in noninvasive magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies as a marker of tissue integrity in health and disease. There is no MRI literature on the normative UF volumetry and corresponding diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) metrics and their interplay with covariates such as age, gender and lateralization across the human lifespan. In this work, we examined using DT fiber tractography the UF volume and normalized volume with respect to each subjects intracranial volume (ICV) and the corresponding DTI metrics bilaterally on a cohort of 108 right-handed children and adults aged 7-68 years. Our results provide the normative age, gender and laterality baseline to help in the interpretation of data from patients. Our DTI results on the development and aging of the UF consolidate previous normative studies that reported linear age trends on children and adults.