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The Virtual Brain: Modeling Biological Correlates of Recovery after Chronic Stroke
Maria Inez Falcon1, Jeffrey D Riley2, Viktor Jirsa3
1Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology, University of California Irvine School of Medicine , Irvine, CA , USA.
Frontiers in Neurology
|November 19, 2015
Summary
The Virtual Brain (TVB) model reveals that increased long-range coupling after stroke impairs brain communication by reducing global efficiency. This finding offers new insights into stroke recovery and personalized treatment strategies.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Computational Biology
- Medical Imaging
Background:
- Stroke recovery shows significant individual variability, highlighting the need for personalized treatment approaches.
- Current methods for understanding stroke-related brain dynamics lack specific physiological biomarkers.
- The Virtual Brain (TVB) offers a novel platform for modeling individual brain activity using neuroimaging data and biophysical models.
Purpose of the Study:
- To detail the TVB modeling process and identify model parameters relevant to stroke.
- To associate TVB parameters with graph analysis metrics to bridge new modeling with existing methods.
- To investigate the biophysical underpinnings of brain dynamics and communication post-stroke.
Main Methods:
- Simulated individual blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) signals using TVB for 20 stroke patients and 10 healthy controls.
- Performed graph analysis on structural connectivity matrices, calculating degree centrality, betweenness centrality, and global efficiency.
- Utilized linear regression to correlate TVB's long-range coupling parameter with graph analysis metrics.
Main Results:
- A significant negative correlation was found between TVB's long-range coupling and global efficiency (P=0.038).
- No significant correlation was observed between long-range coupling and degree centrality or betweenness centrality.
- Increased long-range coupling, indicating a bias toward local brain dynamics, was associated with reduced system efficiency.
Conclusions:
- The TVB model suggests that an increase in long-range coupling post-stroke is deleterious, reducing brain communication efficiency.
- This finding proposes a novel biophysical biomarker for stroke-related brain dysfunction.
- The TVB platform provides a new perspective for understanding stroke-induced changes in global brain dynamics and designing targeted therapies.
