Serial functional imaging poststroke reveals visual cortex reorganization

Abstract

Purpose. Visual cortical reorganization following injury remains poorly understood. The authors performed serial functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) on patients with visual cortex infarction to evaluate early and late striate, ventral, and dorsal extrastriate cortical activation. Methods. Patients were studied with fMRI within 10 days and at 6 months. The authors used a high-level visual activation task designed to activate the ventral extrastriate cortex. These data were compared to those of age-appropriate healthy control participants. Results. The results from 24 healthy control individuals (mean age 65.7 ± SE 3.6 years, range 32-89) were compared to those from 5 stroke patients ..