title: Enhanced regional cerebral metabolic interactions in thalamic circuitry predicts motor recovery in hemiparetic stroke.
abstract: We applied a multiple regression/discriminant analysis to resting metabolic data from patients with first hemiparetic suprathalamic infarctions to determine if metabolic interdependencies, which may separate recovered (N=12) from nonrecovered (N=9) patients, suggest important motor-recovery pathways. Recovered, vs. nonrecovered, patients showed an enhanced ipsilesional thalamic-contralesional cerebellar metabolic interdependency. This pattern correctly classified 91% of recovered and 88% of nonrecovered patients. Metabolic interactions involving bilateral supplementary motor area, ipsilesional thalamus, and contralesional cerebellum distinguished all recovered patients from age/sex-matched controls (N=12). These results suggest that altered functional interactions in thalamic circuitry may reflect plastic reorganization associated with motor recovery from hemiparesis.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Heinrich-Heine-University, Düsseldorf, Germany.
authors.forename: N P
authors.initials: NP
authors.lastname: Azari
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Binkofski
authors.forename: K D
authors.initials: KD
authors.lastname: Pettigrew
authors.forename: H J
authors.initials: HJ
authors.lastname: Freund
authors.forename: R J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Seitz