Damage to the structural connectome reflected in resting-state fMRI functional connectivity.
Anirudh Wodeyar1, Jessica M Cassidy2, Steven C Cramer3
1Department of Cognitive Sciences, University of California, Irvine, CA, USA.
Network Neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.)
|January 7, 2021
Summary
Stroke injury significantly alters brain connectivity. This study reveals that voxel-level functional MRI (fMRI) analysis, unlike region-of-interest analysis, effectively captures how structural damage impacts brain function and connectivity patterns.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Neuroimaging
- Systems Neuroscience
Background:
- The relationship between structural and functional brain connectivity is well-studied in healthy brains.
- Fewer investigations explore how structural damage from injury, such as stroke, affects brain function and connectivity.
Purpose of the Study:
- To analyze the structure-function relationship in stroke patients with heterogeneous structural damage.
- To determine how infarcts influence brain connectivity patterns.
Main Methods:
- Utilized functional MRI (fMRI) to estimate functional connectivity between brain regions of interest (ROIs).
- Employed two analysis pipelines: correlation/partial correlation between 114 cortical ROIs and voxel-level fMRI correlations.
- Investigated the impact of structural connectome (SC) damage on functional connectivity.
Main Results:
- fMRI-BOLD partial correlation was more sensitive to SC damage than simple correlation between ROIs.
- Voxel-level functional connectivity analysis revealed effects of structural damage not apparent in ROI-based analyses.
- Observed effects align with diffusion models of functional connectivity.
Conclusions:
- Voxel-level analysis is crucial for detecting subtle impacts of structural damage on functional connectivity after stroke.
- Structural damage significantly alters functional connectivity, consistent with activity spread over anatomical paths.
