Cognitive brain lateralization through neurovascular coupling in healthy subjects: A statistical complexity analysis

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Biomedical Engineering
• Information Theory

Background:

• Human brain function exhibits lateralization, with asymmetric cerebral hemisphere activation observable via neurovascular coupling (NVC).
• Brain lateralization enhances cognitive capacity by enabling simultaneous distinct functions.
• Understanding these lateralization mechanisms is crucial for cognitive neuroscience and clinical applications.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate cognitive lateralization using NVC responses during the Addenbrooke's Cognitive Examination-III (ACE-III).
• To evaluate the efficacy of dispersion entropy (DE) and statistical complexity measures (SCM) in identifying hemispheric differences in NVC signals.
• To explore how cognitive stimulation impacts NVC complexity patterns and lateralization.

Main Methods:

• Applied dispersion entropy (DE) and statistical complexity measures (SCM) to cerebral blood velocity (CBv), critical closing pressure (CrCP), and resistance area-product (RAP) signals.
• Utilized the Addenbrooke's Cognitive Examination-III (ACE-III) to stimulate cognitive functions including attention, fluency, language, memory, and visuospatial tasks.
• Performed statistical analysis to compare hemispheric differences in NVC complexity during cognitive tasks versus baseline.

Main Results:

• Statistical complexity measures (SCM) effectively detected significant hemispheric lateralization (best p-value = 0.001).
• Dispersion entropy (DE) alone did not differentiate hemisphere activity.
• Cognitive stimulation generally resulted in lower SCM values compared to baseline, particularly in the dominant hemisphere.

Conclusions:

• Neurovascular coupling (NVC) exhibits distinct complexity patterns related to hemisphere dominance and cognitive domain.
• Advanced information theory methods like DE and SCM provide valuable insights into cerebral lateralization mechanisms.
• These findings enhance our understanding of NVC responses during cognitive stimulation and lateralization.