Tractography Pilot Study Leipzig

Pilot Study for Establishing Perioperative Tractography at Leipzig University Neurosurgery

In this pilot study participants will undergo routine magnetic resonance imaging and routine neurosurgical care. By prospectively collecting data from both MRI and patient records we want to investigate biomarkers derived from tractography and diffusion tensor imaging to predict rehabilitation potential.

Patients will undergo MRI before and after surgery with DTI. With CSD-tractography, fiber bundles and their volumes will be identified. By measuring fractional anisotropy (FA) within these volumes, a correlation with clinical outcome and recovery will be tested. Also, FA frequency distributions will be used to describe white matter integrity and to thereby improve future tractography algorithms. Fiber bundles of interest will be the arcuate fascicle (AF), the corticospinal tract (CST), frontal aslant tract (FAT), the inferior fronto-occipital fascicle (IFOF), the inferior longitudinal fascicle (ILF) and the uncinate fascicle (UF).

Inclusion Criteria:

• intracranial lesion
• elective neurosurgical procedure

Exclusion Criteria:

• MRI not applicable
• cerebral ischemia during study period
• pregnancy during study period
• encephalitis during study period
• spontaneous intracerebral hemorrhage during study period