Background and Purpose- Early severity of stroke symptoms-especially in mild-to-severe stroke patients-are imperfect predictors of long-term motor and aphasia outcome. Motor function and language processing heavily rely on the preservation of important white matter fasciculi in the brain. Axial diffusivity (AD) from the diffusion tensor imaging model has repeatedly shown to accurately reflect acute axonal damage and is thus optimal to probe the integrity of important white matter bundles and their relationship with long-term outcome. Our aim was to investigate the independent prognostic value of the AD of white matter tracts in the motor and language network evaluated at 24 hours poststroke for motor and aphasia outcome at 3 months poststroke. Methods- Seventeen (motor cohort) and 28 (aphasia cohort) thrombolyzed patients with initial mild-to-severe stroke underwent a diffusion tensor imaging sequence at 24 hours poststroke. Motor and language outcome were evaluated at 3 months poststroke with a composite motor score and the aphasia handicap scale. We first used stepwise regression to determine which classic (age, initial motor or aphasia severity, and lesion volume) and imaging (ratio of affected/unaffected AD of motor and language fasciculi) factors were related to outcome. Second, to determine the specificity of our a priori choices of fasciculi, we performed voxel-based analyses to determine if the same, additional, or altogether new regions were associated with long-term outcome. Results- The ratio of AD in the corticospinal tract was the sole predictor of long-term motor outcome, and the ratio of AD in the arcuate fasciculus-along with age and initial aphasia severity-was an independent predictor of 3-month aphasia outcome. White matter regions overlapping with these fasciculi naturally emerged in the corresponding voxel-based analyses. Conclusions- AD of the corticospinal tract and arcuate fasciculus are effective biomarkers of long-term motor and aphasia outcome, respectively.
Keywords: brain; diffusion tensor imaging; magnetic resonance imaging; prognosis; stroke.