Author:

Keywords:

Social Sciences, Science & Technology, Life Sciences & Biomedicine, Education, Special, Rehabilitation, Education & Educational Research, Cerebral palsy, Magnetic resonance imaging motor, Brain injuries, Systematic review, UPPER-LIMB FUNCTION, CORTICOSPINAL TRACT, HEMIPARETIC CHILDREN, PEDIATRIC-PATIENTS, HAND FUNCTION, BRAIN, CONNECTIVITY, INTEGRITY, DISRUPTION, PATHOLOGY, Magnetic resonance imaging, motor, Adolescent, Brain, Cerebral Palsy, Child, Child, Preschool, Diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Diffusion Tensor Imaging, Humans, Infant, Infant, Newborn, Neural Pathways, Pyramidal Tracts, Somatosensory Cortex, Thalamus, White Matter, Young Adult, 1117 Public Health and Health Services, 1303 Specialist Studies in Education, 1701 Psychology, 3904 Specialist studies in education, 4203 Health services and systems, 5201 Applied and developmental psychology

Abstract:

Background:Diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (dMRI) is able to detect, localize and quan-tify subtle brain white matter abnormalities that may not be visible on conventional structuralMRI. Over the past years, a growing number of studies have applied dMRI to investigate struc-ture-function relationships in children with cerebral palsy (CP).Aims:To provide an overview of the recent literature on dMRI and motor function in childrenwith CP.Methods:A systematic literature search was conducted in PubMed, Embase, Cochrane CentralRegister of Controlled trials, Cinahl and Web of Science from 2012 onwards.Results:In total, 577 children with CP in 19 studies were included. Sixteen studies only includedunilateral CP, while none included dyskinetic CP. Most studies focused on specific regions/tractsof interest (n = 17) versus two studies that investigated the whole brain. In unilateral and bi-lateral CP, white matter abnormalities were widespread including non-motor areas. In unilateralCP, consistent relationships were found between white matter integrity of the corticospinal tractand somatosensory pathways (e.g. thalamocortical projections, medial lemniscus) with upperlimb sensorimotor function. The role of commissural and associative tracts remains poorly in-vestigated. Also results describing structure-function relationships in bilateral CP are scarce (n =3).Conclusions:This review underlines the importance of both the motor and somatosensory tractsfor upper limb sensorimotor function in unilateral CP. However, the exact contribution of eachtract requires further exploration. In addition, research on the relevance of non-motor pathwaysis warranted, as well as studies including other types of CP.