NCT00063180

Evaluating the Remote Effects of Stroke With MRI and PET Scans

Remote Effects of Stroke on Cerebral Metabolism. Evaluation With Positron Emission Tomography and Proton Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy

• Status: Completed
• Phase: —
• Study type: Observational
• Enrollment: 70 (planned)
• Sponsor: National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) · NIH
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

Patients with stroke sometimes have a condition called diaschisis, a loss of function in a part of the brain located some distance from the original stroke-injury site. Doctors do not know why this happens. The purpose of this study is to get a better understanding as to why diaschisis occurs by studying people who have experienced a stroke and people who have aged in good health. Forty-four participants who are older than 40 year of age will be enrolled in this study-18 healthy people and 26 stroke patients. They will have 3 to 4 study visits. The first visit will involve a medical history and a physical and neurological exam. Participants will then have a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan, either on the first visit or on a later day. On the next visit, they will undergo a position emission tomography (PET) scan. Finally, they will return for another MRI scan.

Detailed description

Objective: Following a stroke, not only is there dysfunction of the lesioned area, but there is also remote functional depression of non-lesioned areas. This functional depression, called diaschisis, likely contributes to the functional deficit of the patient. The objective of this study is to obtain a better understanding of the pathophysiology of diaschisis with the integrated methods of neuroimaging (positron emission tomography (PET) and proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (H-MRS)). Study population: We will recruit patients with subcortical stroke in the subacute state and in the chronic state, and normal controls. Design: The stroke lesion will be the basal ganglia, internal capsule, thalamus, or cerebellum. The frontal cortex, including the motor cortex, is chosen as a remote area. Neurochemical changes in the diaschitic area will be investigated by measuring the glucose metabolic rate with PET, and concentrations of neurochemically important metabolites, such as gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) and glutamate, with H-MRS. Outcome measures: Metabolic change in the diaschitic areas relative to the contra-lateral unaffected side will be calculated as a laterality index. First, this index will be compared among patient groups and control group. As a second analysis, the relationship of glucose metabolism measured by PET and concentrations of the metabolites detected by H-MRS will be evaluated.

Conditions

• Cerebrovascular Accident

Timeline

• Start date: 2003-06-19
• Completion: 2009-04-20
• First posted: 2003-06-23
• Last updated: 2017-07-02

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States