Abstract:

Objective  To investigate the brain iron concentration difference between left- and right-handers by phase values,  detected from susceptibility weighted corrected phase imaging at 3.0 T MR. Methods  Susceptibility-weighted corrected phase images were acquired on a 3.0T MR in 60 healthy handedness subjects (30 lefthanders and 30 right-handers) and 36 healthy subjects (more than 30 years old; 17 women, 19 men; mean age, 56.4 years old) . The left and right handedness groups were matched by sex and age (14 women, 16 men; mean age, 32.5 and 33.4 years). The phase values of bilateral frontal white matters (FWM), caudate nucleus (CN), Putamen (PU), globus pallidus (GP), thalamus (TH), red nucleus (PN) and substantia nigra (SN) were respectively measured on corrected phase images. To check on the reliability of detection method, using pearson correlation analysis to test the correlation between the corrected phase values measured from 36 volunteers with published brain iron levels. Using Independent-Sample T Test to separately (L and R handedness groups) conduct for the phase values of each of the seven bilateral brain regions. Results  Regional corrected phase values on phase-corrected images were negatively correlated with reference values of regional brain iron concentration in healthy adults（r =-0.924，P=0.003）. there were no statistically significant differences in the average phase values of corresponding brain regions between left-handers and right-handers（P＞0.05）. Conclusion  There is no statistically significant difference of brain iron concentration between left- and right-handers.

Key words: Brain;  Iron; Magnetic resonance imaging; Handedness