Structural consequences of diffuse traumatic brain injury: A large deformation tensor-based morphometry study

摘要: Abstract Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is one of the most common causes long-term disability. Despite importance identifying neuropathology in individuals with chronic TBI, methodological challenges posed at stage inter-subject image registration have hampered previous voxel-based MRI studies from providing a clear pattern structural atrophy after TBI. We used novel symmetric diffeomorphic normalization method to conduct tensor-based morphometry (TBM) study The key advantage this that it simultaneously estimates an optimal template and topology preserving deformations between individual subject brains. Detailed patterns atrophies are then revealed by statistically contrasting control space. Participants were 29 survivors TBI 20 subjects who matched terms age, gender, education, ethnicity. Localized volume losses found prominently white matter regions subcortical nuclei including thalamus, midbrain, corpus callosum, mid- posterior cingulate cortices, caudate. Significant voxel-wise loss clusters also detected cerebellum frontal/temporal neocortices. Volume enlargements identified largely ventricular regions. A similar results was observed subgroup analysis where we restricted our 17 participants had no macroscopic focal lesions (total lesion > 1.5 cm3). current confirms, extends, partly By demonstrating large deformation technique can be successfully combined TBM identify TBI-induced diffuse changes greater precision, approach expected increase sensitivity future examining brain–behavior relationships population.