@article{ref1,
title="Concussion disrupts normal brain white matter microstructural symmetry",
journal="Frontiers in neurology",
year="2020",
author="Maruta, Jun and Mallott, Jacob M. and Sulioti, Gary and Ghajar, Jamshid and Palacios, Eva M. and Mukherjee, Pratik",
volume="11",
number="",
pages="e548220-e548220",
abstract="Injuries and illnesses can alter the normal bilateral symmetry of the brain, and  determining the extent of this disruption may be useful in characterizing the  pathology. One way of quantifying brain symmetry is in terms of bilateral  correlation of diffusion tensor metrics between homologous white matter tracts. With  this approach, we hypothesized that the brains of patients with a concussion are  more asymmetrical than those of healthy individuals without a history of a  concussion. We scanned the brains of 35 normal individuals and 15 emergency  department patients with a recent concussion. Fractional anisotropy (FA), mean  diffusivity (MD), axial diffusivity (AD), and radial diffusivity (RD) were  determined for regions of interest (ROI) defined by a standard white-matter atlas  that included 21 bilateral ROIs. For each ROI pair, bilateral correlation  coefficients were calculated and compared between the two subject groups. A symmetry  index, defined as the ratio between the difference and the sum of bilateral  measures, was also calculated for each ROI pair and compared between the groups. We  found that in normal subjects, the extent of symmetry varied among regions and  individuals, and at least subtle forms of structural lateralization were common  across regions. In patients, higher asymmetry was found overall as well as in the  corticospinal tract specifically. <br><br>RESULTS indicate that a concussion can manifest in  brain asymmetry that deviates from a normal state. The clinical utility of  characterizing post-concussion pathology as abnormal brain asymmetry merits further  exploration.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="1664-2295",
doi="10.3389/fneur.2020.548220",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fneur.2020.548220"
}