Aliya Gifford1, Anna Binstock2,
Joseph Wang3, Kathy Zackowski3,4, Jonathan Farrell5,6,
Peter C.M. van Zijl5,6, Gerald Raymond1,4, Seth Smith7,8
1Department of Neurogenetics, Kennedy
Krieger Institute, Baltimore, MD, United States; 2University of
Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD; 3Motion Analysis
Laboratory, Kennedy Krieger Institute, Baltimore, MD; 4Department
of Neurology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD; 5Department
of Radiology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD; 6F.M.
Kirby Research Center for Functional Brain Imaging, Kennedy Krieger
Institute, Baltimore, MD; 7Vanderbilt University Institute of
Imaging Science, United States; 8Department of Radiology,
Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN
Adrenomyeloneuropathy
(AMN) is characterized by primary distal axonopathy with secondary
demyelination. In this study we
performed diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) at 1.5T on 29 healthy volunteers and
39 AMN patients. Tractography of the
left and right corticospinal tracts (CST) were performed and diffusion
anisotropy and diffusivity were computed.
A significant change in FA and perpendicular diffusivity was found
from the pons to mid-brain (p<0.01) and mid-brain to thalamus (p<0.001)
regions in AMN patients. This suggests
that DTI can quantify the pathway-specific abnormalities in AMN, and results
are in corroboration with knowledge that cerebral damage is present in AMN.
Keywords