Advances in the Prognostic Value of Diffusion Tensor Imaging with Motor Evoked Potential for Motor Function in Cerebral Infarction Patients with Hemiplegia

Abstract

Limb paralysis is a common sequela of cerebral infarction, which leads to both physical disorders and heavy psychological burden. Recent years have witnessed growing studies on the prognosis of motor function in patients with cerebral infarction, and increasing well-known relevant medical evaluation tools, such as diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and motor evoked potential induced by transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS-MEP), which can microscopically assess the structural changes in white matter fiber bundles, and the combined use of them, that is, the combination of neuroanatomy, electrophysiology and neuroimaging, can more accurately assess the level of motor neuron impairment, thereby obtaining a motor function assessment surpassing the assessment based on clinical function indicators in terms of objectivity. We reviewed the prognostic value of DTI and TMS for motor function recovery via detecting and quantifying corticospinal tract degeneration in patients after cerebral infarction, and summarized the prognostic values of commonly used relevant measurement parameters for motor function recovery in hemiplegic patients. We concluded that DTI and TMS-MEP are powerful tools for noninvasively assessing complex structures of brain tissues, which can detect more subtle neural and tissue changes, and the combined use of them can effectively explore the damage pattern of white matter fiber bundles using different analysis methods, contributing to the development of neurological rehabilitation programs and maximum improvement of the long-term prognosis for patients.

Keywords

• brain infarction|diffusion tensor imaging|transcranial magnetic stimulation|prognosis of motor function|neurological rehabilitation|review