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Updated: Mar 13, 2026
Advanced Diffusion Imaging in The Hippocampus of Rats with Mild Traumatic Brain Injury
Published on: August 14, 2019
Diffusion tensor imaging detects early brain microstructure changes before and after ventriculoperitoneal shunt in
Cailei Zhao1, Yongxin Li, Weiguo Cao
1Department of Radiology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an Department of Radiology, Shenzhen Children's Hospital, Shenzhen The Key Laboratory of Biomedical Information Engineering, Ministry of Education, School of Life Science and Technology, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an Institute of Clinical Anatomy, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, China.
Insights
Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) reveals early brain microstructure changes in children with hydrocephalus. Shunt surgery improved some DTI parameters, indicating microstructural recovery before clinical improvements.
Area of Science:
- Neuroimaging
- Pediatric Neurology
- Biomedical Engineering
Background:
- Hydrocephalus in children can cause increased intracranial pressure, potentially leading to brain microstructure damage.
- Early quantitative assessment of brain changes is crucial for monitoring treatment efficacy.
Purpose of the Study:
- To evaluate diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) parameters for assessing early brain microstructure changes in children with high intracranial pressure hydrocephalus.
- To compare DTI metrics before and after ventriculoperitoneal shunt surgery.
Main Methods:
- Ten pediatric patients with hydrocephalus and 14 age/gender-matched controls underwent DTI scans.
- Regions of interest (ROIs) included white matter areas (FHLV, OHLV, OS, FS) and thalamus.
- Fractional anisotropy (FA) and apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) values were analyzed pre- and post-surgery.
Main Results:
- Pre-shunt, hydrocephalus patients showed decreased FA and increased ADC in most ROIs compared to controls.
- Post-shunt, FA in frontal and occipital horns normalized, but remained lower in other ROIs.
- Post-shunt, ADC normalized in frontal/occipital subcortical areas, but remained higher in other ROIs.
Conclusions:
- DTI parameters (FA and ADC) reflect early brain microstructure changes in pediatric hydrocephalus.
- Shunt surgery led to partial microstructural recovery, evidenced by DTI changes preceding clinical improvement.
- DTI offers a quantitative tool to assess white matter compression and recovery in hydrocephalus.
Abstract:
To explore the use of diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) parameters in the quantitative assessment of early brain microstructure changes before and after ventriculoperitoneal shunt in children with high intracranial pressure hydrocephalus.Ten patients with communicating hydrocephalus (age: 2-36 months) and 14 age-/gender-matched controls (age: 2-36 months) were enrolled in this study. All patients underwent the ventriculoperitoneal shunt procedure. The imaging data were collected before and 3 months after the operation. Regions of interests (ROIs) included the white matter near the frontal horn of the lateral ventricles (FHLV), the occipital horn of the lateral ventricles (OHLV), occipital subcortical (OS) area, frontal subcortical (FS) area, and thalamus. Fractional anisotropies (FA) and apparent diffusion coefficients (ADC) of the ROIs before and after ventriculoperitoneal shunt were compared between the patients and the controls.Three months after surgery, the patients recovered from the surgery with ameliorated intracranial pressure and slight improvement of clinical intelligence scale and motor scale. Before ventriculoperitoneal shunt, the FA values (except the right FHLV) were significantly decreased and the ADC values were significantly increased in the patients with hydrocephalus, compared with the controls. After the ventriculoperitoneal shunt, the FA values in the FHLV and OHLV of the patients were similar to the controls, but the FA values in other ROIs were still significantly lower than controls. The ADC values in the FS and OS white matter areas of the patients were similar to the controls; however, the ADC values in other ROIs were still significantly higher in patients.The increase of FA and the reduction in ADC in the ROIs preceded the clinical function improvement in patients with high intracranial pressure hydrocephalus and reflected the early changes in brain tissue microstructure, such as the compression of the white matter areas in the ROIs.
