Jong-su Baeck1,
Jeehye Seo1, Seong-Uk Jin1, Jang Woo Park1,
Moon Han1, Yongmin Chang2, 3, Yong Won Cho4
1Department
Medical & Biological Engineering, kyungpook national University, Daegu,
Korea; 2Department of Radiology, Kyungpook National University,
Daegu, Korea; 3Department of Molecular Medicine, kyungpook
national University, Daegu, Korea; 4Department of Neurology,
Kemyung University School of Medicine, Daegu, Korea
In the present study, using voxel-based DTI, we aimed to explore the possible mechanism of altered integrity of brain white matter in RLS patients. RLS patients demonstrated decreased FA in the genu of corpus callosum and frontal white matter adjacent to inferior frontal gyrus (Brodmann 10) compared with healthycontrol subjects (P<0.001). For areas of decreased FA, both AD and RD were higher than that in control subjects. Decreased FA in RLS patients revealed the microstructural abnormalities in the genu of corpus callosum and the frontal white matter. Among these areas, increased RD in the frontal white matter suggested the demyelination of white matter consistent with findings from previous postmortem study. Increased AD seems to be associated with reduced axonal density. Taken together, our findings may suggest that both loss of axonal density and loss of myelin were responsible for the white matter abnormalitiesin RLS patients.