Brain Connectivity During Walking and Obstacle Avoidance in Persons With Multiple Sclerosis and Healthy Controls: A...

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Rehabilitation Science
• Biomedical Engineering

Background:

• Multiple sclerosis (MS) impairs motor function and cognitive processing.
• Understanding brain network alterations during dual-tasking is crucial for rehabilitation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate effective connectivity and hemispheric asymmetry in persons with multiple sclerosis (pwMS) compared to healthy controls (HC).
• To analyze cognitive-motor interference (CMI) during walking alone and obstacle avoidance using electroencephalography (EEG).

Main Methods:

• Used partial directed coherence (PDC) to estimate directed functional connectivity from EEG data.
• Compared connectivity patterns between pwMS and HC during two walking conditions.
• Analyzed EEG in beta, alpha, and theta frequency bands.

Main Results:

• Healthy controls showed increased connectivity in motor and cognitive regions during obstacle avoidance.
• pwMS exhibited weaker, more localized connectivity, primarily in left central regions, indicating reduced neural efficiency.
• pwMS displayed leftward laterality in central regions compared to HC.
• In HC, connectivity positively correlated with walking speed; in pwMS, it negatively correlated, suggesting compensatory but inefficient engagement.

Conclusions:

• pwMS demonstrate disrupted brain connectivity during motor-cognitive tasks, highlighting reduced neural efficiency.
• Findings suggest compensatory mechanisms in pwMS that are less efficient than those in HC.
• Results have implications for developing targeted rehabilitation strategies to enhance gait and neural efficiency in MS.