MRI Assessment of the Relationship Between Cortical Morphological Features and Hemiparetic Motor‐Related Outcomes in Chronic Subcortical Stroke Patients

Background It is unclear which cortical regions are specific to or commonly associated with the impairments of the upper/lower limbs and the activities of daily life (ADL) in stroke patients. Purpose To investigate the relationships between MRI‐assessed surface‐based morphometry (SBM) features and motor function as well as ADL in participants with chronic stroke. Study Type Prospective. Subjects Thirty‐five participants with subcortical stroke more than 3 months from the first‐onset (age: 56.44 ± 9.56 years; 32 male). Field Strength/Sequence T 1 ‐weighted images, 3.0 T, three‐dimensional fast field‐echo sequence. Assessment FreeSurfer (6.0) was used to parcellate each hemisphere into 34 regions based on the Desikan–Killiany atlas and to extract the surface area, volume, thickness, and curvature. The motor function and ADL were assessed by the Fugl‐Meyer Assessment for the Upper/Lower Extremity (FMA‐UE/FMA‐LE) and the Chinese version of the Modified Barthel Index (MBI‐C), respectively. Statistical Tests A linear mixed‐effect model was applied to evaluate the relationship between the morphological features and the FMA‐UE, FMA‐LE, and MBI‐C. A false discovery rate corrected P value < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results Correlations between the size of stroke lesion and MRI measurements did not pass the FDR correction (adjusted P > 0.05). SBM features in motor‐related and high‐order cognitive cortical regions showed significant correlations with FMA‐UE and FMA‐LE, respectively. Moreover, the thickness in the prefrontal cortex significantly positively correlated, while the surface area in the right supramarginal gyrus significantly negatively correlated, with both FMA‐UE, FMA‐LE, and MBI‐C. The thickness in the left frontal lobe significantly positively correlated with both FMA‐UE and MBI‐C. Data Conclusion This study's findings suggest that different hemiparetic motor‐related outcomes in participants with subcortical stroke which suffered a corticospinal tract‐related injury show specific, but also share common, associations with several cortical regions. Evidence Level 2 Technical Efficacy Stage 2