Latent dimension linking functional connectivity with post-stroke deficits across multiple domains.

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Neurology
• Cognitive Science

Background:

• Stroke frequently results in diverse behavioral impairments, impacting multiple cognitive and motor domains.
• Existing research often links single deficits to specific network disruptions, overlooking the complex, interconnected nature of post-stroke impairments.
• Recent findings suggest deficits across domains are highly correlated, indicating a complex brain-behavior relationship after stroke.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify multivariate patterns of functional connectivity and behavior covariation following stroke.
• To investigate the relationship between whole-brain functional connectivity and a wide range of neurological scores over time.
• To explore the role of structural lesion features in explaining observed functional connectivity-behavior relationships.

Main Methods:

• Utilized partial least squares correlation, a multivariate data-driven approach.
• Analyzed functional connectivity and neurological scores (motor, attention, memory, language) in stroke patients at 2 weeks, 3 months, and 12 months post-injury.
• Examined the influence of structural white matter disconnections and grey matter damage on functional connectivity-behavior patterns.

Main Results:

• Identified a significant latent component (LC) at 2 weeks post-stroke, reflecting a pattern of multi-domain cognitive deficits.
• This LC was associated with widespread network dysfunction, characterized by altered inter- and intra-hemispheric connectivity.
• The identified pattern was replicated across time points (3 and 12 months), and structural disconnection was found to be a critical explanatory factor, outperforming grey matter damage.

Conclusions:

• Stroke-induced white matter disconnections are linked to consistent, widespread disruptions in brain network connectivity.
• These network disruptions manifest as a highly correlated profile of behavioral deficits across multiple domains.
• Structural disconnection serves as the neuroanatomical basis for the observed associations between functional connectivity and behavioral outcomes, offering integrative insights into stroke recovery.