OBJECTIVETo measure gray matter volume of whole brain with voxel-based morphometry (VBM) method and to study brain structures associated with gross motor function.

METHODForty children with cerebral palsy were recruited in the authors' hospital from Oct. 2012 to Dec. 2013 (26 male, 14 female cases, average age (3.6 ± 2.0) years ). Gross motor function classification system (GMFCS) for children was used to obtain their motor function. The whole-brain three dimensional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was performed on a 3.0 T MRI scanner. The data were segmented by VBM 5, and the whole brain volumes of gray matter, white matter and cerebospinal fluid were produced. Correlation analysis was used to analyze the correlation of GMFCS with whole brain volumes using SPM 5 in Matalab 7.1.

RESULTThe volume in left meditemporal gyrus (Z=3.57) and inferior temporal gyrus (Z=3.40), right thalamus and pallidum (Z=3.36), left thalamus and pallidum (Z=2.76), left supramarginal gyrus (Z=3.14), left precuneus gyrus (Z=3.00), right dorsolateral superior frontal gyrus (Z=3.08), right superior and medial occipital gyrus (Z=2.84) significantly increased as aggravation of gross motor dysfunction. The volume of the left medial orbitofrontal lobe and anterior cingulate (Z=3.28,3.02), left medial superior frontal gyrus (Z=3.19), left caudate (Z=3.04, 2.94, 2.92), left cerebellum (Z=2.94), right cerebellum (Z=2.97), left parahippocampal (Z=3.94), right parahippocampal (Z=3.43, 3.00), left insula (Z=3.50), right insula (Z=3.41, 3.80), left lingual (Z=3.37), right lingual (Z=3.30), left post cingulum (Z=2.73), left midioccipital gyrus (Z=2.92) and right miditemporal gyrus (Z=3.05) significantly reduced as the aggravation of gross motor dysfunction (P all<0.005).

CONCLUSIONGMFCS in children with cerebral palsy is related to abnormalities of brain gray matter structure for motor, emotion, memory and default model network when examined with VBM method.