학술논문

Tractography-Pathology Correlations in Traumatic Brain Injury: A TRACK-TBI Study
Document Type
article
Source
Journal of Neurotrauma. 38(12)
Subject
Biomedical Imaging
Physical Injury - Accidents and Adverse Effects
Acquired Cognitive Impairment
Neurosciences
Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)
Traumatic Head and Spine Injury
Brain Disorders
Aetiology
2.1 Biological and endogenous factors
Neurological
Brain Injuries
Traumatic
Connectome
Diffusion Tensor Imaging
Humans
Male
Middle Aged
Neural Pathways
contusion
MRI
neuropathology
tractography
traumatic axonal injury
traumatic brain injury
TRACK-TBI Investigators
Clinical Sciences
Neurology & Neurosurgery
Language
Abstract
Diffusion tractography magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can infer changes in network connectivity in patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI), but the pathological substrates of disconnected tracts have not been well defined because of a lack of high-resolution imaging with histopathological validation. We developed an ex vivo MRI protocol to analyze tract terminations at 750-μm isotropic resolution, followed by histopathological evaluation of white matter pathology, and applied these methods to a 60-year-old man who died 26 days after TBI. Analysis of 74 cerebral hemispheric white matter regions revealed a heterogeneous distribution of tract disruptions. Associated histopathology identified variable white matter injury with patchy deposition of amyloid precursor protein (APP), loss of neurofilament-positive axonal processes, myelin dissolution, astrogliosis, microgliosis, and perivascular hemosiderin-laden macrophages. Multiple linear regression revealed that tract disruption strongly correlated with the density of APP-positive axonal swellings and neurofilament loss. Ex vivo diffusion MRI can detect tract disruptions in the human brain that reflect axonal injury.