Stephen Rose1, Kerstin Pannek, Kate Sinclair2, Martin Lavin3
1University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia; 2Royal Childrens Hospital; 3Queensland Institue for Medical Research
Structural connectivity studies employing diffusion-weighted MRI (dMRI) and probabilistic tractography can provide new insight into the loss in integrity of important white matter (WM) motor pathways. However, such imaging studies in children with severe ataxias present a significant challenge, due to the likelihood of artifacts induced by involuntary head movement. To overcome this constraint, we have developed an image processing strategy to reduce such effects and present novel information about the degeneration of specific cerebellar-corticomotor pathways in children with ataxia-telangiectasia (A-T). Such information improves our understanding of the clinical phenotype in A-T.