Significance of the corpus callosum and inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus in recovery after traumatic brain injury.

OBJECTIVE

To analyze the correlations between the consciousness state scores and the fractional anisotropy (FA) values in various segments of the Corpus Callosum (CC) and Inferior Fronto-Occipital Fasciculus (IFOF) at different stages of recovery after traumatic brain injury (TBI).

METHODS

Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) was performed in 43 TBI patients and 22 healthy volunteers. The consciousness levels were estimated with the CRS-R scale. The tracts were divided into segments using a template based on tractograms of healthy volunteers, and the correlations between the CRS-R scores and the FA values were calculated for each tract segment.

RESULTS

In the acute period after TBI, 15 segments of the CC and IFOF demonstrated significant correlations (p < 0.05). In the long-term period, the highest number (24) of correlations were found in the studied tracts segments. In the subacute period, only 3 segments with correlations were detected.

CONCLUSIONS

We propose a new pipeline, which yields spatial localization of correlations between the fractional anisotropy values and the CRS-R scores in patients after TBI. It allows us to make assumptions about the functioning of neural networks.

SIGNIFICANCE: This work provides new information concerning the organization of fiber tracts and neural networks in TBI patients and may improve neurorehabilitation approaches.