Cortical Activation Reorganization of Cerebral Regions in Charcot– Marie–Tooth Patients: A Task-state Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study

Background : Evidence of altered brain functional activation in response to different tasks has been reported in some peripheral neuropathies. The aim of this study was to investigate possible central nervous system modifications using task-state Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (FMRI) in Charcot–Marie–Tooth patients. Methods: A design of ankle dorsiflexion-plantarflexion and fist clutching paradigm was adopted at a frequency of 1 Hz in the FMRI portion in CMT patients and healthy controls. We acquired 3.0T MRI brain scans. The brain activation MR signals were recorded and a paired voxel-wise t-test was performed. The correlations between FMRI measurement and clinical variables were calculated.