Abstract
Background: In spite of the fact that advanced neuroimaging applications are used for the evaluation of Tuberous Sclerosis (TS) patients, a few studies analyzed relationship between the measurements of DTI (diffusion tensor imaging) and neurological findings.
Objectives: Evaluate DTI properties of cortical tubers and white matter lesions in TS, and analyze whether there was a correlation between DTI findings and neurological findings.
Materials and Methods: MRI and DTI were performed on 31 subjects with TS. DTI findings of subjects with TS were compared with those of the control group. Then, the correlation between DTI values and neurological findings was analyzed.
Results: ADC values of cortical tubers and white matter lesions in subjects with epilepsy were higher than in those without epilepsy. Additionally, the MRI lesion scores showed that our subjects with epilepsy had more lesions than without epilepsy.
Conclusions: DTI findings of cortical tubers and white matter lesions in TS subjects could be related to microstructural changes such as neuronal loss and the impairment of myelin integrity.
We hypothesized that severity neurological symptoms may be correlated with MRI lesion load and DTI parameters.
Keywords: Tuberous sclerosis, epilepsy, MRI, diffusion tensor imaging, white matter lesions, neuronal loss.
Graphical Abstract
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