Projection of Damaged Visual and Language Regions on Low Trail Making Test Part-B Performance in Stroke Patients.

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Cognitive Psychology
• Medical Imaging

Background:

• The Trail Making Test Part-B (TMT-B) is a neuropsychological assessment tool used to evaluate attention and executive functions.
• It requires participants to connect numbers and letters in alternating sequence, assessing cognitive flexibility and processing speed.
• Cognitive dysfunction following neurological events like stroke can impact TMT-B performance.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the relationship between brain lesion locations and performance on the Trail Making Test Part-B (TMT-B) in stroke patients.
• To determine if specific patterns of brain damage correlate with particular TMT-B performance metrics (score and completion time).

Main Methods:

• Stroke patients' TMT-B scores and completion times were analyzed using k-means clustering to form distinct performance groups.
• Brain lesion severity was quantified across 116 Automated Anatomical Labeling (AAL) regions.
• Wilcoxon Rank-Sum tests identified significant differences in lesion distribution between performance groups (corrected p < 0.1).

Main Results:

• Patients with low TMT-B scores exhibited significant lesions in visual processing areas, including the cuneus and superior occipital gyrus (corrected p < 0.1).
• Moderate TMT-B scores were associated with more severe lesions in language-related regions like the superior temporal gyrus and supramarginal gyrus (corrected p < 0.05).
• Faster TMT-B completion times correlated with lesions in visual areas (calcarine, cuneus) compared to slower groups (corrected p < 0.1).

Conclusions:

• TMT-B performance can serve as an indicator of lesion location in stroke patients.
• Low TMT-B scores are linked to damage in visual processing centers, while moderate scores suggest involvement of language networks.
• These findings highlight the potential of TMT-B in non-invasively inferring brain damage patterns.