Diffusion tensor imaging in pure and complicated hereditary spastic paraparesis

Background: Hereditary spastic paraparesis (HSP) is a group of rare and genetically heterogeneous neurodegenerative disorders characterized by progressive spasticity and weakness of the lower limbs. A differentiation between pure (pHSP) and complicated forms (cHSP) is based on the presence of non-motor findings out of a wide spectrum in the latter. Objectives: Standard MRI of the brain shows a variety of abnormalities like diffuse white matter lesions or cortical atrophy, and the most frequent finding is a thin corpus callosum (CC) in some cHSP forms. MRI techniques like diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) are able t…