Byeong-Yeul Lee1, Don Bigler1, James R. Connor2, Qing X. Yang1,3
1Bioengineering, The Penn State University, Hershey, PA, USA; 2Neurosurgery, The Penn State University, Hershey, PA, USA; 3Radiology, The Penn State University, Hershey, PA, USA
Restless legs syndrome (RLS) is a sensory-motor disorder causing chronic sleep disturbance. Our goal was to investigate overall morphological changes with voxel-based morphometry (VBM) and white matter changes with diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) in RLS. Our results showed that a significant decrease of volume and FA in gray/white matter of RLS compared to the controls, demonstrating intrinsic pathological changes occurring in RLS brain. Fusion of the two imaging modalities is valuable clinically for diagnosis and monitoring RLS and scientifically for elucidating the disease mechanism.