Our aim was to identify the longitudinal changes in GMV and secondary alterations of structural covariance after pontine stroke (PS). Structural MRI and behavioral scores were obtained at 1 week, 1 month, 3 months, 6 months in 11 patients with PS. Twenty healthy subjects underwent the same examination only once. We used voxel-based morphometry and seed-based structural covariance to investigate the altered GMV and structural covariance patterns. Furthermore, the associations between the GMV changes and behavioral scores were assessed. With the progression of the disease, GMV decreased significantly in the bilateral cerebellar posterior lobe (ipsilateral Crus II and contralateral Crus I), which were initially detected at the first month and then continued to decrease during the following 6 months. Based on the ipsilateral Crus II and contralateral Crus I as seed regions, structural covariance analysis revealed that there were more positively and negatively correlated brain regions in PS group, mainly distributed in the bilateral prefrontal lobe, parietal lobe, temporal lobe, paralimbic system and cerebellum. In addition, PS group showed more additional correlations between these covariant brain regions, and the changes of GMV in these regions were correlated with behavioral scores related to motor and cognitive functions. These findings indicate that PS could lead to significant GMV atrophy in the bilateral cerebellar posterior lobe at the early stage, accompanied by anomalous structural covariance patterns with more covariant brain regions and additional structural connectivity, which may provide useful information for understanding the neurobiological mechanisms of behavioral recovery after PS.

我们的目的是确定脑桥卒中（PS）后GMV的纵向变化和结构协方差的继发变化。11例PS患者在1周，1个月，3个月，6个月时获得了结构性MRI和行为评分。二十名健康受试者仅接受了一次相同的检查。我们使用基于体素的形态学和基于种子的结构协方差来研究改变的GMV和结构协方差模式。此外，评估了GMV变化与行为评分之间的关​​联。随着疾病的进展，双侧小脑后叶（同侧Crus II和对侧Crus I）的GMV显着下降，最初在第一个月发现，然后在接下来的6个月中继续下降。以同侧Crus II和对侧Crus I作为种子区域，结构协方差分析显示PS组的脑区域存在更多的正相关和负相关，主要分布在双侧前额叶，顶叶，颞叶，上肢系统和小脑。此外，PS组在这些协变大脑区域之间显示出更多的其他相关性，并且这些区域中GMV的变化与与运动和认知功能有关的行为评分相关。这些发现表明PS可能会在早期导致双侧小脑后叶明显的GMV萎缩，并伴有异常的结构协方差模式，以及更多的大脑区域和其他结构连通性，