Brain functional connectivity in patients with hyperthyroidism after anti-thyroid treatment.

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Endocrinology
• Radiology

Background:

• Thyroid disease impacts brain function and cognition.
• Recovery of brain changes after hyperthyroid treatment is not well understood.

Purpose of the Study:

• Investigate changes in brain functional connectivity after anti-thyroid treatment.
• Correlate these changes with neuropsychological outcomes.

Main Methods:

• Follow-up resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rsfMRI) study.
• Included 21 hyperthyroid patients assessed before and after 30 weeks of treatment.
• Paired t-tests compared functional connectivity and neuropsychological scores.

Main Results:

• Patients showed improved memory, executive, visuospatial, and motor functions post-treatment.
• Increased functional connectivity was observed in right and left fronto-parietal networks and the default mode network (DMN).
• Right fronto-parietal network connectivity positively correlated with object recognition memory.

Conclusions:

• Anti-thyroid treatment partially restores functional connectivity in hyperthyroid patients.
• Some resting-state networks show improvement, while others remain impaired, indicating persistent effects of thyroid disease.