Christopher D.J. Sinclair1,
2, Laura Mancini2, 3, John S. Thornton1,
2
1MRC
Centre for Neuromuscular Diseases, UCL Institute of Neurology, London, United
Kingdom; 2Department of Brain Repair and Rehabilitation, UCL
Institute of Neurology, London, United Kingdom; 3Lysholm Department
of Neuroradiology, National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, London,
United Kingdom
The sciatic nerve is conveys motor and sensory signals in the lower limbs and abnormalities can include focal tumours or demyelination in peripheral neuropathies. We performed high-resolution anatomical imaging and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) of the sciatic nerve in healthy subjects at 3T in order to visualize the course of the nerve and derive metrics such as the fractional anisotropy (FA). The mean FA of the nerve was 0.620.04, substantially higher than the surrounding muscle (0.220.02). FA maps provided good depiction of the course of the nerve and any observed variations may be valuable in monitoring conditions such as Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease.