Altered resting-state cerebellar-cerebral functional connectivity in patients with end-stage renal disease

End-stage renal disease (ESRD) patients have functional and structural brain abnormalities. The cerebellum also showed varying degrees of damage. However, no studies on cerebellar-cerebral functional connectivity (FC) have been conducted in ESRD patients. This study aimed to investigate the changes in cerebellar-cerebral FC in ESRD patients and its relationship with neuropsychological and clinical indexes.

Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging and neuropsychological assessment were performed on 37 ESRD patients and 35 control subjects. Seed-based FC analysis was performed to investigate inter-group differences in cerebellar-cerebral FC. In addition, the relations of altered FC with the neuropsychological function and clinical indicators were analyzed in ERSD patients.

ESRD patients exhibited alterations in cerebellar-cerebral FC involving the executive control network, default mode network, and affective-limbic network compared to control subjects (False discovery rate-corrected, p < 0.05). The altered cerebellar-cerebral FC was associated with the Montreal Cognitive Assessment Scale score (p < 0.05), and correlated with serum creatinine and uric acid levels within the ESRD group (p < 0.05).

The study indicates that cerebellar-cerebral FC is involved in the neural substrates of cognitive impairment in ESRD patients. The findings may provide clinically relevant new neuroimaging biomarkers for the neuropathological mechanisms underlying cognitive impairment of ESRD.