Disruption of the Corticoreticular Tract in Pediatric Patients With Trunk Instability: A Diffusion Tensor Tractography Study

The authors report the diffusion tensor tractography (DTT) findings of three pediatric patients with gait dysfunction and corticoreticular tract (CRT) disruption. All three patients showed unilateral trunk instability, but they did not show any spasticity or weakness of the distal extremities. Clinical evaluation of trunk instability using a Trunk Control Measurement Scale (TCMS) revealed that the more affected side had a lower score than the contralateral side. DTT showed disrupted CRTs in hemispheres contralateral to the hemiparetic sides, which were associated with unilateral proximal instability, although conventional MRI showed no abnormal lesion explaining the hemiplegic symptom. Compared to the results in age-matched controls, these three patients had decreased values of fractional anisotropy (FA) and tract volumes (TV) of the affected CRTs, and these values were also decreased compared to those in the contralateral side. On the other hand, values of FA and TV of the corticospinal tracts on the ipsilateral and contralateral sides were only marginally different. In conclusion, diffusion tensor imaging can be helpful for investigating the state of the CRT in pediatric patients with trunk instability and gait dysfunction.

THE ROLE OF VITAMIN B_6 TO COGNITION AND GAIT DYSFUNCTION IN POSTNATAL RATS WITH CEREBRAL PALSY / 营养学报

Objective:To observe the changes of cognition and gait dysfunction in postnatal rats with cerebral palsy and the possible mechanism.Method:An improved Philips method was used and the model of cerebral palsy was induced.Fifty four Wistar rats aged 14 d with cerebral palsy were randomly divided into 3 groups,cerebral palsy control group(CM,n=18),VB6 treated group(CM+VB6,n=18)and sham surgery group(CS).Morris water maze test(MWMT)was used to detect the change of cognition func-tion including the escape latency(EL)and swimming distance(SD).Footprint pattern test(FPT)was used to detect the changes of gaits inctuding the left/right stride length(LSL,RSL),front-base width(FBW),hind-base width(HBW),distance from left/right front footprint/hind footprint overlap(DLFHFO,DRFHFO).Results:MWMT:EL and SD of CM+VB6 were shorter than CM's from D 12(P 0.05).FPT:LSL and RSL were longer from D 5,and HBW and DRFHFO were shorter from D 7compared with those in CM+VB6 and CM group(P