Increasing functional connectivity of the anterior cingulate cortex during the course of recovery from Bell's palsy

Bell's palsy (BP), a unilateral and idiopathic palsy of the facial nerve, is a common disorder generally followed by a good natural recovery. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between the functional connectivity of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and the recovery process of BP. Thirty-seven healthy volunteers and 67 patients were studied by functional MRI (fMRI). The seed regions of bilateral ACC were first extracted from the task-state fMRI data of healthy participants performing the task of mouth opening and closing. The connectivity of bilateral ACC was calculated from resting-state fMRI data of patients in whom only resting-state fMRI data were collected. The correlation between the strength of ACC's connectivity with the duration (time course of disease) was computed by analysis of covariance. It was found that the functional connectivity of the ACC ipsilateral to the lesioned side was enforced as the duration increased. The enforced brain areas included the sensorimotor areas and the ACC contralateral to the palsy. It was suggested that enforced functional connectivity of ACC might be related to cortical reorganization, which is important in the process of BP recovery.