MND-MFHC Facial Paralysis

Brain MRI of 53 patients with unilateral idiopathic peripheral facial paralysis, acquired at the China-Japan Friendship Hospital in Beijing. It is the facial paralysis part of MND-MFHC, a release that pairs these patients with people with Meige syndrome and healthy controls so that researchers can study how disorders of the facial nerve relate to brain structure and function. The other two groups sit in separate Science Data Bank records (doi:10.57760/sciencedb.09677 for Meige syndrome, doi:10.57760/sciencedb.10872 for the controls). The record belongs to the Chinese Color Nest Project data community.

Composition

The record holds 53 patients, 35 of them women, aged 7 to 85 years (mean 43.6, SD 16.2). Patients were enrolled prospectively through the Department of Neurosurgery. The descriptor lists as inclusion criteria unilateral idiopathic peripheral facial paralysis diagnosed by a clinician, onset within seven days, no other intracranial or psychiatric disorder and right-handedness. Central facial paralysis and hemifacial spasm were excluded. Each patient folder follows BIDS with anat, func, dwi and perf subfolders. A second folder holds per-subject MRIQC reports. The descriptor states that age, sex and clinical assessments are included; facial function was rated with the Toronto Facial Grading System.

Acquisition

All scans were made on one GE MR750 3 T scanner with a fixed protocol: a 1 mm T1-weighted structural image, an 8-minute resting-state BOLD run (TR 2000 ms, 240 volumes), diffusion imaging with 64 directions at b = 1000 plus b = 0, and arterial spin labeling with cerebral blood flow maps. Faces in the structural images were masked before release.

Known limitations

• Access needs a signed data use agreement and two approval steps, so the files cannot be inspected beforehand.
• The record and the descriptor give a youngest age of 7 years although the inclusion criteria name adults; the age range is reported as published.
• There are no healthy controls in this record; they are in the separate controls record.
• The descriptor reports that some participants were excluded by quality control in its own analyses but does not say how many from this group, nor whether their files are left out of the release.