1. Corticospinal Tract Microstructure Predicts Distal Arm Motor Improvements in Chronic Stroke.
- Author
-
Kim, Bokkyu, Schweighofer, Nicolas, Haldar, Justin P., Leahy, Richard M., and Winstein, Carolee J.
- Abstract
Supplemental Digital Content is Available in the Text. Background and Purpose: The corticospinal tract (CST) is a crucial brain pathway for distal arm and hand motor control. We aimed to determine whether a diffusion tensor imaging (DTI)-derived CST metric predicts distal upper extremity (UE) motor improvements in chronic stroke survivors. Methods: We analyzed clinical and neuroimaging data from a randomized controlled rehabilitation trial. Participants completed clinical assessments and neuroimaging at baseline and clinical assessments 4 months later, postintervention. Using univariate linear regression analysis, we determined the linear relationship between the DTI-derived CST fractional anisotropy asymmetry (FA
asym ) and the percentage of baseline change in log-transformed average Wolf Motor Function Test time for distal items (ΔlnWMFT-distal_%). The least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) linear regressions with cross-validation and bootstrapping were used to determine the relative weighting of CST FAasym , other brain metrics, clinical outcomes, and demographics on distal motor improvement. Logistic regression analyses were performed to test whether the CST FAasym can predict clinically significant UE motor improvement. Results: lnWMFT-distal significantly improved at the group level. Baseline CST FAasym explained 26% of the variance in ΔlnWMFT-distal_%. A multivariate LASSO model including baseline CST FAasym , age, and UE Fugl-Meyer explained 39% of the variance in ΔlnWMFT-distal_%. Further, CST FAasym explained more variance in ΔlnWMFT-distal_% than the other significant predictors in the LASSO model. Discussion and Conclusions: CST microstructure is a significant predictor of improvement in distal UE motor function in the context of an UE rehabilitation trial in chronic stroke survivors with mild-to-moderate motor impairment. Video Abstract available for more insight from the authors (see the Video, Supplemental Digital Content 1, available at: http://links.lww.com/JNPT/A350). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]- Published
- 2021
- Full Text
- View/download PDF