Case Report: Resting-State Brain-Networks After Near-Complete Hemispherectomy in Adulthood

Understanding the dynamics of reorganized network-level brain functions after hemispherectomy is important for treatment, prognostication, and rehabilitation of brain injury, but also for investigating questions of fundamental neurobehavioral interest: How does the brain promote consciousness despite loss of one hemisphere?

We studied resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) in a high-functioning middle-aged man 6 years after functional hemispherectomy following malignant middle cerebral artery infarction, and we compared results to RSFC in 20 healthy controls.

Our analysis indicates increased between-network connectivity for all seven networks examined in the patient's preserved hemisphere, compared to healthy controls, suggesting a shift toward increased between-network connectivity following near-complete loss of one hemisphere during adulthood.

These data corroborate and extend recent findings of increased between-network connectivity in the remaining hemisphere after surgical hemispherectomy for intractable epilepsy during childhood. Our results support a neuroplasticity model with reorganization of distributed brain connectivity within the preserved hemisphere as part of the road to recovery after brain injury, as well as recovery of consciousness and cognitive functions, after hemispherectomy.