Despite many fMRI papers published on recovery after stroke, I did not find one study demonstrating that a particular fMRI parameter (i.e. lateralisation or size of M1 activation) or a particular fMRI pattern (i.e. increased connectivity between motor areas) in an early fMRI study can predict motor recovery at follow-up. Several other MRI parameters (simply the lesion size or DTI integrity of pyramidal tract) are also candidates and are more easily obtained than fMRI, thus why use fMRI?
Obviously it can't be predicted with a single parameter. There are several types of stroke, with different impact on the brain. E.g. there is no point of using FLAIR sequence with an ischaemic stroke. At the other hand a haemorhagic stroke additionaly disables or even damages brain tissue due to toxicity of blod clots, where the blood-sensitive sequence comes in. Generally patients are non-responsive during first two weeks after onset at which the lesion dynamics is pronounced. Conclusively no fMRI can be performed during that time except the resting state fMRI, and DTI applys on the white matter only. Some patients have all kind of image sequences positive on lesions, some patients don't.
Thank you Denny and Eugenio for your answers. So, it looks like that for both of you, fMRI can be unpractical as tool to predict recovery...
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