Abstract
ObjectivesWe investigated injuries of the optic radiations (ORs) in patients with mild traumatic brain injury (TBI) by using diffusion tensor tractography (DTT).MethodsFifty-two consecutive patients who complained of visual problems showed abnormal visual evoked potential (VEP) latency but no abnormality on conventional brain MRI after mild TBI, and fifty normal control subjects were recruited for this study. Subjects’ ORs were reconstructed using DTT, and three DTT parameters (fractional anisotropy [FA], apparent diffusion coefficient [ADC], and tract volume) were measured for each OR.ResultsMean FA value and tract volume of the OR were significantly lower in the patient group than in the control group (p < 0.05). However, there was no significant difference in the ADC values of the OR between the patient and control groups (p > 0.05). A weak negative correlation was detected between VEP latency and OR fiber number (r = 0.204, p < 0.05).ConclusionsDTT revealed that OR injuries were not detected on the conventional brain MRI scans of patients who complained of visual problems and had abnormal VEP latency after mild TBI. Our results suggest that DTT would be a useful technique for detecting OR injury in patients with mild TBI.
Highlights
We investigated injuries of the optic radiations (ORs) in patients with mild traumatic brain injury (TBI) by using diffusion tensor tractography (DTT)
No significant difference was detected between the apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) values of the ORs of the patient and control groups (p > 0.05) (Table 2)
A weak negative correlation was observed between the visual evoked potential (VEP) latency values and fiber numbers of the ORs of the patient group (r = 0.204, p < 0.05) (Table 3)
Summary
Abstract Objectives ‒ We investigated injuries of the optic radiations (ORs) in patients with mild traumatic brain injury (TBI) by using diffusion tensor tractography (DTT). Conclusions ‒ DTT revealed that OR injuries were not detected on the conventional brain MRI scans of patients who complained of visual problems and had abnormal VEP latency after mild TBI. Since the introduction of diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), several studies have described neural tract injuries in patients with mild TBI [8,9,10]. The demonstration of injury of neural tracts in patients with mild TBI is clinically important because such patients usually show no abnormality on conventional brain MRI [8,10,11,12,13]. We used DTT to investigate OR injuries in patients with mild TBI
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