[Neuroimaging and cerebral palsy]

A high percentage of subjects with cerebral palsy (CP) present brain injuries, which are revealed by neuroimaging techniques. On the whole the pattern of brain damage is heterogeneous.

We review the studies that have described the brain damage in CP using structural and functional neuroimaging techniques. Brain damage is considered according to the type of CP and taking the gestational age into account.

According to structural neuroimaging studies carried out in spastic diplegia, the brain pattern differs with the gestational age. In early subjects with spastic diplegia it is the periventricular white matter that is mainly affected. In spastic quadriplegia, cortico subcortical lesions and hypoplasia of the corpus callosum are also observed. Unilateral lesions predominate in the case of hemiplegia. Hemiplegic subjects may also present damage to the white matter, cortico subcortical lesions and congenital brain malformations. In these subjects, some of the injury patterns observed seem to be related with the clinical features they display. Dyskinetic CP is characterised by the absence of lesions and alteration of the basal ganglia and the thalamus. Very few studies have been conducted that take the different types of CP into account in comparing the findings of structural and functional neuroimaging.