Fig. 3

White matter integrity changes in spinal cord of individuals with stroke compared to controls. a Tracts with significant decrease (red-yellow) in white matter integrity (fractional anisotropy (FA)). When compared to controls, individuals with stroke had significant decrease in white matter integrity of lateral corticospinal tract (LCST), cuneate fasciculus (FCu), gracile fasciculus (FGr), and tectospinal tract (TST) of the paretic side. These individuals also showed decreased white matter integrity in medial reticulospinal tract (MRST), medial longitudinal fasciculus (MLF), and medial corticospinal tract (MCST) of non-paretic side, which project ipsilaterally from the lesioned hemisphere. b Tracts with significant increase (blue) in white matter integrity. Medial reticulospinal tract of paretic side, which projects from non-lesioned motor cortices, had significant increased white matter integrity in individuals with stroke compared to controls. (Statistical test: between-group two-sample t test. Voxel-wise p < 0.005 was applied and the cluster-level corrected at p = 0.05.) c High-resolution spinal cord white matter atlas derived from the Gray’s Anatomy Atlas, adapted from ref. ⁴². d Correlation of significant white matter integrity changes in individuals with stroke with their motor impairment level. Decreases in lateral corticospinal tract in individuals with stroke had significant positive correlation with their impaired motor performance. Increases in medial reticulospinal tract in individuals with stroke showed a negative correlation with their impaired motor performance. Paretic refers to the side of non-lesioned hemisphere (contralesional). Blue line with abbreviation HC indicates the mean of FA value in healthy controls for lateral corticospinal tract (equal to 0.68) and medial reticulospinal tract (equal to 0.49). Fugl–Meyer Assessment (FMA) score is missing for one participant. Source data are provided as a Source Data file