Altered resting-state functional and white matter tract connectivity in stroke patients with dysphagia

Swallowing dysfunction is intractable after acute stroke. Our understanding of the alterations in neural networks of patients with neurogenic dysphagia is still developing.

The aim was to investigate cerebral cortical functional connectivity and subcortical structural connectivity related to swallowing in unilateral hemispheric stroke patients with dysphagia.

We combined a resting-state functional connectivity with a white matter tract connectivity approach, recording 12 hemispheric stroke patients with dysphagia, 12 hemispheric stroke patients without dysphagia, and 12 healthy controls. Comparisons of the patterns in swallowing-related functional connectivity maps between patient groups and control subjects included (a) seed-based functional connectivity maps calculated from the primary motor cortex (M1) and the supplementary motor area (SMA) to the entire brain, (b) a swallowing-related functional connectivity network calculated among 20 specific regions of interest (ROIs), and (c) structural connectivity described by the mean fractional anisotropy of fibers bound through the SMA and M1.

Stroke patients with dysphagia exhibited dysfunctional connectivity mainly in the sensorimotor-insula-putamen circuits based on seed-based analysis of the left and right M1 and SMA and decreased connectivity in the bilateral swallowing-related ROIs functional connectivity network. Additionally, white matter tract connectivity analysis revealed that the mean fractional anisotropy of the white matter tract was significantly reduced, especially in the left-to-right SMA and in the corticospinal tract.

Our results indicate that dysphagia secondary to stroke is associated with disruptive functional and structural integrity in the large-scale brain networks involved in motor control, thus providing new insights into the neural remodeling associated with this disorder.