Tract-Based Spatial Statistical Analysis of Diffusion Tensor Imaging in Pediatric Patients with Mitochondrial Disease: Widespread Reduction in Fractional Anisotropy of White Matter Tracts
BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Often diagnosed at birth or in early childhood, mitochondrial disease presents with a variety of clinical symptoms, particularly in organs and tissues that require high energetic demand such as brain, heart, liver, and skeletal muscles. In a group of pediatric patients identified as having complex I or I/III deficits on muscle biopsy but with white matter tissue appearing qualitatively normal for age, we hypothesized that quantitative DTI analyses might unmask disturbance in microstructural integrity
