White matter integrity correlates with residual consciousness in patients with severe brain injury

• Published in: Brain imaging and behavior Vol. 12; no. 6; pp. 1669 - 1677
• Main Authors: Wang, Lubin, Yang, Yi, Chen, Shanshan, Ge, Mingmei, He, Jianghong, Yang, Zheng, Lin, Pan, Wu, Xinhuai
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer US 01.12.2018; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Abnormalities; Adult; Aged; Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Biomedicine; Brain; Brain - diagnostic imaging; Brain Injuries - diagnostic imaging; Brain Injuries - physiopathology; Brain injury; Coma; Computer networks; Consciousness; Correlation analysis; Demyelination; Diffusion Tensor Imaging; Female; Fornix; Head injuries; Humans; Image processing; Integrity; Magnetic resonance imaging; Male; Middle Aged; Nerve Fibers, Myelinated; Neuroimaging; Neuropsychology; Neuroradiology; Neurosciences; Original Research; Patients; Psychiatry; Recovery (Medical); Spatial distribution; Statistical analysis; Substantia alba; Traumatic brain injury; Unconsciousness; White Matter - diagnostic imaging; Young Adult; Fornix; Coma Recovery Scale-Revised; Tract-based spatial statistics; Disorder of consciousness; Diffusion tensor imaging
• ISSN: 1931-7557; 1931-7565; 1931-7565
• DOI: 10.1007/s11682-018-9832-1

Previous studies have suggested that white matter disruption plays an important role in disorders of consciousness (DOC) after severe brain injury. Nevertheless, the integrity of white matter architecture supporting consciousness and its relations with clinical severity in patients with DOC remain to be established. In this study, diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) data was collected from 14 DOC patients and 15 healthy control subjects. We combined tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS) with region of interest (ROI) analysis to examine differences of DTI metrics on white matter skeletons between DOC patients and healthy controls, and the association between white matter integrity and patients’ residual consciousness assessed by Coma Recovery Scale-Revised (CRS-R). We found that: (1) patients with DOC had widespread white matter integrity disruptions, especially in the fornix; (2) the alteration of white matter microstructure was mainly attributed to the increase in radial diffusivity, possibly reflecting demyelination; (3) the behavioral CRS-R assessment score was positively correlated with white matter integrity in the fornix, uncinate fasciculus, pontine crossing tract, and posterior limb of internal capsule. Our results suggest that despite the widespread abnormalities of white matter following severe brain injury, the impairment of consciousness is likely to result from disruptions of key pathways that link brain regions in distributed networks.