{"doi":"10.3389/fneur.2021.631330","title":"Case Report: An MRI Traumatic Brain Injury Longitudinal Case Study at 7 Tesla: Pre- and Post-injury Structural Network and Volumetric Reorganization and Recovery","abstract":"Importance: A significant limitation of many neuroimaging studies examining mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) is the unavailability of pre-injury data. Objective: We therefore aimed to utilize pre-injury ultra-high field brain MRI and compare a collection of neuroimaging metrics pre- and post-injury to determine mTBI related changes and evaluate the enhanced sensitivity of high-resolution MRI. Design: In the present case study, we leveraged multi-modal 7 Tesla MRI data acquired at two timepoints prior to mTBI (23 and 12 months prior to injury), and at two timepoints post-injury (2 weeks and 8 months after injury) to examine how a right parietal bone impact affects gross brain structure, subcortical volumetrics, microstructural order, and connectivity. Setting: This research was carried out as a case investigation at a single primary care site. Participants: The case participant was a 38-year-old female selected for inclusion based on a mTBI where a right parietal impact was sustained. Main outcomes: The main outcome measurements of this investigation were high spatial resolution structural brain metrics including volumetric assessment and connection density of the white matter connectome. Results: At the first scan timepoint post-injury, the cortical gray matter and cerebral white matter in both hemispheres appeared to be volumetrically reduced compared to the pre-injury and subsequent post-injury scans. Connectomes produced from whole-brain diffusion-weighted probabilistic tractography showed a widespread decrease in connectivity after trauma when comparing mean post-injury and mean pre-injury connection densities. Findings of reduced fractional anisotropy in the cerebral white matter of both hemispheres at post-injury time point 1 supports reduced connection density at a microstructural level. Trauma-related alterations to whole-brain connection density were markedly reduced at the final scan timepoint, consistent with symptom resolution. Conclusions and Relevance: This case study investigates the structural effects of traumatic brain injury for the first time using pre-injury and post-injury 7 Tesla MRI longitudinal data. We report findings of initial volumetric changes, decreased structural connectivity and reduced microstructural order that appear to return to baseline 8 months post-injury, demonstrating in-depth metrics of physiological recovery. Default mode, salience, occipital, and executive function network alterations reflect patient-reported hypersomnolence, reduced cognitive processing speed and dizziness.","journal":"Frontiers in Neurology","year":2021,"id":201222,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":7,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.5608,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2021-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":27686,"name":"Kristen Dams-O'Connor","orcid":"0000-0002-2506-0216","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":779579,"name":"Eric Watson","orcid":"0000-0003-2072-9213","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":329637,"name":"Priti Balchandani","orcid":"0000-0001-7709-5835","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":723576,"name":"Rebecca Feldman","orcid":"0000-0001-8403-9807","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":779578,"name":"Stephanie Brown","orcid":"0000-0002-8747-7770","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":35,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:50:52.535403Z","pmid":"34079509","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}