Magnetic Resonance Imaging for White Matter Degradation in Fornix Following Mild Traumatic Brain Injury

The alterations of the fornix in mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) were investigated using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and T1-weighetd anatomical imaging. The primary goal of this study was to test that hypothesis that the fornix might play a major role in the memory and learning dysfunctions in the post-concussion syndrome, which may related to the white matter (WM) degradations following mild traumatic brain injury. N=24 mTBI patients were longitudinally studied in two time points with 6-month intervals using a 4-Tesla MRI scanner to measure the WM integrity of fornix and the fornix-to-brain ratio (FBR), and compared with matched healthy controls. Our data show that the WM degradation in fornix onset in the acute stage after mild TBI when the post-injury time was less than 6 weeks, and that this WM degradation continued during the following 6-month period of recovery. In summary, using DTI and structural MRI together can effectively detect the fornix changes in both cross-sectional and longitudinal investigations. Further studies are warranted to exam the association between the fornix alterations and neurocognitive performance of TBI patients.