ArticleFrontiers in neuroscience2025
Asymmetric white matter degeneration in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: a diffusion kurtosis imaging study of motor and extra-motor pathways.
Article in Frontiers in neuroscience, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Potential Roles of Neuroimaging in Motor Neuron Disease.Current neurology and neuroscience reports · 2026Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that lacks effective early biomarkers. This study investigated the potential of diffusion kurtosis imaging (DKI) as a non-invasive biomarker for detecting and monitoring ALS progression through a comprehensive analysis of white matter alterations. Methods: We performed a cross-sectional analysis of magnetic resonance images with advanced diffusion imaging techniques in ALS patients recruited from a neurodegenerative consultation service over a 3-year period and healthy controls. Our methodology employed multi-shell multi-tissue constrained spherical deconvolution (MSMT-CSD) for tract reconstruction and diffusion kurtosis imaging for microstructural analysis. The study focused particularly on the corticospinal tract and associated pathways, utilizing both tract-specific Bundle Analytics (BUAN) and whole-brain Tract-Based Spatial Statistics (TBSS) approaches. Results: The study included 33 ALS patients and 37 controls with no significant differences in age or gender. ALS patients predominantly presented with spinal onset and exhibited moderate functional impairment (ALSFRS-R: 39.09 ± 5). Whole-brain TBSS revealed widespread white matter alterations, with increased MD, RD, and AD, and decreased FA notably in the corona radiata, internal capsule, and corticospinal tracts. Detailed fiber tracking of the corticospinal tracts showed significant microstructural changes, with the left CST displaying pronounced increases in MD and AD alongside reduced FA, while the right CST exhibited distinctive regional variations. Additionally, analyses of the frontopontine and parietopontine tracts uncovered further alterations in diffusion metrics. Despite imaging findings, clinical-radiological correlations with functional scores and disease progression were not statistically significant. Conclusions: This study explores DKI as a potential biomarker for ALS pathology, revealing microstructural changes in both motor and extra-motor pathways. Using whole-brain TBSS analysis and tractography with DIPY, we identified an asymmetric pattern of degeneration and involvement of integrative neural networks, providing new insights into ALS pathophysiology. These findings contribute to our understanding of the complex structural alterations in ALS and suggest that DKI-derived metrics may have utility in characterizing the disease process.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.