Fractional Anisotropy by DTI in Patients with Myotonic Distrophy Type I

Myotonic Distrophy Type I (DM1) is a neurodegenerative and hereditary disorder; its more typical symptoms are muscle weakness and hypotonia, which may lead to several complications like respiratory failure and cardiac arrest. The aim of this study is to find biomarkers that help us to characterize the evolution of this disorder related to white matter. In the present work 74 volunteer participants (37 DM1 patients and 37 healthy control subjects) were matched by age, gender and level education, then underwent an MRI session in a 3T Philips Ingenia
scanner with 32 channel head sense coil. Diffusion Tensor Images (DTI) were acquired with 33 difussion direction (64 axial slices with spatial resolution of 3mmx3mmx3mm) . The image post-processing analysis was done with specialized software FSL 5.0.8. The DTIs were reoriented to the standard space, then artifact corrected and the Fractional Anisotropy maps was obtained. For the statistical analysis a t-test for unpaired samples was applied.