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Updated: Apr 6, 2026
Diffusion Tensor Magnetic Resonance Imaging in the Analysis of Neurodegenerative Diseases
Published on: July 28, 2013
Stroke and Neurodegeneration Induce Different Connectivity Aberrations in the Insula
Indira García-Cordero1, Lucas Sedeño1, Daniel Fraiman1
1From the Laboratory of Experimental Psychology and Neuroscience (LPEN), Institute of Cognitive Neurology (INECO), Favaloro University, Buenos Aires, Argentina (I.G.-G., L.S., L.A.d.l.F., P.S., F.M., A.I.); UDP-INECO Foundation Core on Neuroscience (UIFCoN), Faculty of Psychology, Diego Portales University, Santiago, Chile (L.S., F.M., A.I.); National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET), Buenos Aires, Argentina (L.S., D.F., D.C., F.M., A.I.); Laboratorio de Investigación en Neurociencia, Universidad de San Andrés, Buenos Aires, Argentina (D.F.); Facultad de Ingeniería, Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad Favaloro, Buenos Aires, Argentina (D.C.); Memory and Balance Clinic, Buenos Aires, Argentina (C.S.); Department of Clinical Neurological Sciences, Western University, London, Canada (L.S.); Universidad Autónoma del Caribe, Barranquilla, Colombia (A.I.); and ACR Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders, Sydney, Australia (F.M., A.I.).
Background And Purpose:
Stroke and neurodegeneration cause significant brain damage and cognitive impairment, especially if the insular cortex is compromised. This study explores for the first time whether these 2 causes differentially alter connectivity patterns in the insular cortex.
Methods:
Resting state-functional magnetic resonance imaging data were collected from patients with insular stroke, patients with behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia, and healthy controls. Data from the 3 groups were assessed through a correlation function analysis. Specifically, we compared decreases in connectivity as a function of voxel Euclidean distance within the insular cortex.
Results:
Relative to controls, patients with stroke showed faster connectivity decays as a function of distance (hypoconnectivity). In contrast, the behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia group exhibited significant hyperconnectivity between neighboring voxels. Both patient groups evinced global hypoconnectivity. No between-group differences were observed in a volumetrically and functionally comparable region without ischemia or neurodegeneration.
Conclusions:
Functional insular cortex connectivity is affected differently by cerebral ischemia and neurodegeneration, possibly because of differences in the cause-specific pathophysiological mechanisms of each disease. These findings have important clinical and theoretical implications.
