Fig. 1: Distinct spatiotemporal trajectories of white matter hyperintensity (WMH) progression in stroke patients.

a Spatiotemporal patterns of distinct WMH progression subtypes (fronto-parietal [FP]; radial; temporo-occipital [TO]). Bullseye presentations (F: frontal; B: basal ganglia; T: temporal; P: parietal; O: occipital) and median WMH severity maps are presented for each WMH subtype at WMH stages 2, 6, 10, and 14. The z-axis coordinates in the Montreal Neurological Institute space appear in the bottom right corner of the first three brain slices in the FP subtype. b Left, Sankey diagram illustrating patient distributions across the number of subtypes in Subtype and Stage Inference (SuStaIn) modeling. Main results in this study utilized the three-subtype model (*). Groups in models were assigned the same color as the subtype with the highest patient proportion based on the three-subtype model. Middle-stage distributions across subtypes. Patients at stage 0 were not included in any other subtypes (FP, radial, and TO subtype). Right, scatter plot showing maximum likelihood (ML) subtype probabilities (prob.) of individuals, in a 2D projection on a triangular plane. c Left, distributions of follow-up (FU) years across subtypes. Middle, longitudinal subtype stability rates (number of patients) by subtypes at admission and FU. Right, simple linear regression graph of observed vs. predicted stage changes in stroke patients after FU. Two-sided P and R-squared values for the correlation are provided (P = 2.94 × 10⁻²²). Scatter dot sizes represent number of patients (n = 1, 2 ≤ n ≤ 5, 6 ≤ n ≤ 10, and 11 ≤ n ≤ 18). These findings suggest baseline assignment to a subtype is mostly stable, with relatively few patients crossing out of their initially assigned group. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.