A procedure which could help physicians to diagnosis cerebral palsy in
early infancy has been developed by pediatric neuroscientists at the
Oregon Health and Science University Doernbecher Children’s Hospital.
The researchers were the first to uncover small white matter injuries
in the growing brain which had been formerly undetectable using
standard MRI procedures. The new procedure uses high magnetic field
strength MRI to accurately identify these lesions early in preterm
infants. Such early identification could lead to earlier introduction
of therapy while also allowing physicians to inform families sooner of
the possibility of the eventual development of cerebral palsy.

The research findings were published in the medical journal Annals of
Neurology by the principal investigator Stephen Back, MD, PhD.
According to Dr. Back, white matter injury is the most common reason
for chronic neurologic disability in children with cerebral palsy. The
problem is, as Dr. Back explains, is that until now babies with
cerebral palsy often show no white matter injuries in the standard
MRIs done on them, delaying beneficial treatment through intervention
and rehabilitation.

“Until now there hasn’t been a compelling reason to put preterm babies
into a high-field MRI scanner. Our work indicates the magnetic field
strength of current clinical MRI may be a limiting factor to detecting
some white matter lesions in the preterm infant. Now that we can
detect this injury, we also hope our findings may encourage MRI
researchers to find more sensitive means to detect this injury with
lower field MRIs that are widely available,” said Back, who is an
associate professor of pediatrics and neurology at the Pap- Family
Pediatric Research Institute at OHSU Doernbecher Children’s Hospital.