Citation

Womack KB, Paliotta C, Strain JF, Ho JS, Skolnick YS, Lytton WW, Turtzo LC, McColl R, Diaz-Arrastia R, Bergold P. J. Neurotrauma 2016; 34(8): 1539-1545.

Affiliation

SUNY-Downstate Medical Center, Physiology and Pharmacology , Box 29 , 450 Clarkson Avenue , Brooklyn, New York, United States , 11203 ; pbergold@downstate.edu.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016, Mary Ann Liebert Publishers)

DOI

10.1089/neu.2016.4670

PMID

27927083

Abstract

This study examined whether peripheral vision reaction time (PVRT) in patients with mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) correlate with white matter abnormalities in centroaxial structures and impairments in neuropsychological testing. Within 24 hours after mTBI, crossed reaction times (CRT), uncrossed reaction times (URT) and crossed-uncrossed difference (CUD) were measured in 23 patients using a laptop computer that displayed visual stimuli predominantly to either the left or right visual field of the retina. The CUD is a surrogate marker of the interhemispheric transfer time (ITT). Within 7 days after the injury, patients received a diffusion tensor-MRI (DTI) scan and a battery of neuropsychological tests. Nine uninjured control subjects received similar testing. Patients aged 18 - 50 years were included if they had a post-resuscitation Glasgow Coma Scale greater than 13 and an injury mechanism compatible with mTBI. Healthy controls were either age- and gender-matched family members of the TBI patients or healthy volunteers. CUD deficits greater than 2 standard deviations (SD) were seen in 40.9% of patients, respectively. The CUD of injured patients correlated with MD (p < 0.001, ρ= -0.811) in the posterior corpus callosum. Patients could be stratified on the basis of CUD on the Stroop 1, COWAT and the obsessive-compulsive component of the Basic Symptom Inventory tests. These studies suggest that the PVRT indirectly measures white matter integrity in the posterior corpus callosum, a brain region frequently damaged by mTBI.

Language: en