Injuries of neural tracts in a patient with CADASIL: a diffusion tensor imaging study

BACKGROUND We report a patient with cerebral autosomal dominant arteriopathy with subcortical infarcts and leukoencephalopathy (CADASIL), who showed injuries of the neural tracts, which was demonstrated by diffusion tensor tractography (DTT). CASE PRESENTATION A 64-year-old male patient and seven age-matched control volunteers were recruited. Since approximately 1.5 years ago, he had felt mild weakness of the right arm and was diagnosed as CADASIL by the finding of the exon 11 mutation of the NOTCH3 gene approximately 10 months ago. T2-weighted and FLAIR brain MRI images obtained at admission showed high signal intensity lesions in the subcortical gray matter and periventricular white matter. He showed mild quadriparesis, mild dysarthria, mild cognitive impairment, and emotional problems. Diffusion tensor imaging was performed and nine neural tracts (corticospinal tract, corticobulbar tract, corticofugal tract from the supplementary motor area, corticofugal tract from the premotor cortex, thalmoprefrontal tract [TPT] to the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, TPT to the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, TPT to the orbitoprefrontal cortex, fornix, and cingulum) were reconstructed. Fractional anisotropy (FA), mean diffusivity (MD), and tract volume of each neural tract were measured. All neural tracts except for the left fornix showed at least one more abnormality in terms of DTT parameters (decrement of FA, increment of MD, or decrement of tract volume). CONCLUSION We demonstrated injuries of the neural tracts in a patient with CADASIL. It appears that clinical manifestations in this patient were related to injuries of the neural tracts.