Brain structural connectivity increases concurrent with functional improvement: Evidence from diffusion tensor MRI in children with cerebral palsy during therapy

Cerebral Palsy (CP) refers to a heterogeneous group of permanent but non-progressive movement disorders caused by injury to the developing fetal or infant brain (Bax et al., 2005). Because of its serious long-term consequences, effective interventions that can help improve motor function, independen...

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Autores principales: Englander, Zoë A., Sun, Jessica, Laura Case, Mikati, Mohamad A., Kurtzberg, Joanne, Song, Allen W.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Elsevier 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4297884/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25610796
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.nicl.2015.01.002
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author Englander, Zoë A.
Sun, Jessica
Laura Case
Mikati, Mohamad A.
Kurtzberg, Joanne
Song, Allen W.
author_facet Englander, Zoë A.
Sun, Jessica
Laura Case
Mikati, Mohamad A.
Kurtzberg, Joanne
Song, Allen W.
author_sort Englander, Zoë A.
collection PubMed
description Cerebral Palsy (CP) refers to a heterogeneous group of permanent but non-progressive movement disorders caused by injury to the developing fetal or infant brain (Bax et al., 2005). Because of its serious long-term consequences, effective interventions that can help improve motor function, independence, and quality of life are critically needed. Our ongoing longitudinal clinical trial to treat children with CP is specifically designed to meet this challenge. To maximize the potential for functional improvement, all children in this trial received autologous cord blood transfusions (with order randomized with a placebo administration over 2 years) in conjunction with more standard physical and occupational therapies. As a part of this trial, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is used to improve our understanding of how these interventions affect brain development, and to develop biomarkers of treatment efficacy. In this report, diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and subsequent brain connectome analyses were performed in a subset of children enrolled in the clinical trial (n = 17), who all exhibited positive but varying degrees of functional improvement over the first 2-year period of the study. Strong correlations between increases in white matter (WM) connectivity and functional improvement were demonstrated; however no significant relationships between either of these factors with the age of the child at time of enrollment were identified. Thus, our data indicate that increases in brain connectivity reflect improved functional abilities in children with CP. In future work, this potential biomarker can be used to help differentiate the underlying mechanisms of functional improvement, as well as to identify treatments that can best facilitate functional improvement upon un-blinding of the timing of autologous cord blood transfusions at the completion of this study.
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spelling pubmed-42978842015-01-21 Brain structural connectivity increases concurrent with functional improvement: Evidence from diffusion tensor MRI in children with cerebral palsy during therapy Englander, Zoë A. Sun, Jessica Laura Case Mikati, Mohamad A. Kurtzberg, Joanne Song, Allen W. Neuroimage Clin Regular Article Cerebral Palsy (CP) refers to a heterogeneous group of permanent but non-progressive movement disorders caused by injury to the developing fetal or infant brain (Bax et al., 2005). Because of its serious long-term consequences, effective interventions that can help improve motor function, independence, and quality of life are critically needed. Our ongoing longitudinal clinical trial to treat children with CP is specifically designed to meet this challenge. To maximize the potential for functional improvement, all children in this trial received autologous cord blood transfusions (with order randomized with a placebo administration over 2 years) in conjunction with more standard physical and occupational therapies. As a part of this trial, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is used to improve our understanding of how these interventions affect brain development, and to develop biomarkers of treatment efficacy. In this report, diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and subsequent brain connectome analyses were performed in a subset of children enrolled in the clinical trial (n = 17), who all exhibited positive but varying degrees of functional improvement over the first 2-year period of the study. Strong correlations between increases in white matter (WM) connectivity and functional improvement were demonstrated; however no significant relationships between either of these factors with the age of the child at time of enrollment were identified. Thus, our data indicate that increases in brain connectivity reflect improved functional abilities in children with CP. In future work, this potential biomarker can be used to help differentiate the underlying mechanisms of functional improvement, as well as to identify treatments that can best facilitate functional improvement upon un-blinding of the timing of autologous cord blood transfusions at the completion of this study. Elsevier 2015-01-09 /pmc/articles/PMC4297884/ /pubmed/25610796 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.nicl.2015.01.002 Text en © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Regular Article
Englander, Zoë A.
Sun, Jessica
Laura Case
Mikati, Mohamad A.
Kurtzberg, Joanne
Song, Allen W.
Brain structural connectivity increases concurrent with functional improvement: Evidence from diffusion tensor MRI in children with cerebral palsy during therapy
title Brain structural connectivity increases concurrent with functional improvement: Evidence from diffusion tensor MRI in children with cerebral palsy during therapy
title_full Brain structural connectivity increases concurrent with functional improvement: Evidence from diffusion tensor MRI in children with cerebral palsy during therapy
title_fullStr Brain structural connectivity increases concurrent with functional improvement: Evidence from diffusion tensor MRI in children with cerebral palsy during therapy
title_full_unstemmed Brain structural connectivity increases concurrent with functional improvement: Evidence from diffusion tensor MRI in children with cerebral palsy during therapy
title_short Brain structural connectivity increases concurrent with functional improvement: Evidence from diffusion tensor MRI in children with cerebral palsy during therapy
title_sort brain structural connectivity increases concurrent with functional improvement: evidence from diffusion tensor mri in children with cerebral palsy during therapy
topic Regular Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4297884/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25610796
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.nicl.2015.01.002
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