Asymptomatic carotid stenosis is associated with both edge and network reconfigurations identified by single-subject
Jinxia Ren1, Dan Xu2, Hao Mei1
1Department of Radiology, Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University, Wuhan, Hubei, China.
Background And Purpose:
Patients with asymptomatic carotid stenosis, even without stroke, are at high risk for cognitive impairment, and the neuroanatomical basis remains unclear. Using a novel edge-centric structural connectivity (eSC) analysis from individualized single-subject cortical thickness networks, we aimed to examine eSC and network measures in severe (> 70%) asymptomatic carotid stenosis (SACS).
Methods:
Twenty-four SACS patients and 24 demographically- and comorbidities-matched controls were included, and structural MRI and multidomain cognitive data were acquired. Individual eSC was estimated via the Manhattan distances of pairwise cortical thickness histograms.
Results:
In the eSC analysis, SACS patients showed longer interhemispheric but shorter intrahemispheric Manhattan distances seeding from left lateral temporal regions; in network analysis the SACS patients had a decreased system segregation paralleling with white matter hyperintensity burden and recall memory. Further network-based statistic analysis identified several eSC and subgraph features centred around the Perisylvian regions that predicted silent lesion load and cognitive tests.
Conclusion:
We conclude that SACS exhibits abnormal eSC and a less-optimized trade-off between physical cost and network segregation, providing a reference and perspective for identifying high-risk individuals.
