AUTHOR=Jacquemont Thomas , Valabregue Romain , Daghsen Lina , Moulton Eric , Zavanone Chiara , Lamy Jean Charles , Rosso Charlotte 

TITLE=Association between superior longitudinal fasciculus, motor recovery, and motor outcome after stroke: a cohort study

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Neurology

VOLUME=Volume 14 - 2023

YEAR=2023

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/neurology/articles/10.3389/fneur.2023.1157625

DOI=10.3389/fneur.2023.1157625

ISSN=1664-2295

ABSTRACT=Introduction : Parietofrontal interactions are mediated by the superior longitudinal fasciculus (SLF) and are crucial to integrate visuomotor information and mediate fine motor control. Here, we aimed to characterize in stroke patients with upper limb motor deficits the relation of white matter integrity of both part of the SLF (SLF I and SLF II) to both motor outcome and recovery and its evolution over time.Fractional anisotropy (FA) values over the SLF I, SLF II and corticospinal tract (CST) and upper limb motor performance evaluated by both the upper limb Fugl-Meyer score and maximum grip strength were measured for 16 patients at 3 weeks, 6 weeks and 12 weeks poststroke. FA changes over time were assessed using repeated-measures Friedman ANOVA and correlations between motor recovery, motor outcome at 12 weeks and FA values in the CST, SLF I and SLF II at 3 weeks were performed using Spearman's rank-order correlation.Results : FA values in the affected hemisphere's SLF I and SLF II at 3 weeks correlated with motor recovery at 12 weeks when assessed by the upper limb Fugl-Meyer (rho: 0.502, p: 0.04 and rho: 0.510, p: 0.04 respectively) but not when assessed by grip strength. FA values in the SLF I and SLF II were not correlated with motor outcome. FA values in the SLF II in the affected hemisphere changed significantly over time (p: 0.016).Both SLF I and SLF II appeared to participate in poststroke motor recovery of complex movements but not in motor outcome. These results argue that visually/spatially oriented motor tasks as well as more complex motor tasks using parietal associative areas should be used for poststroke rehabilitation strategies.