Contralateral Brain Region Exhibits a Hemispheric Difference in Brain Dynamic Functional Connectivity in Patients...

Many imaging studies focused on the assessment of volume atrophy, structural damage, and abnormal functional connectivity (FC) in patients with carotid artery stenosis disease. Our purpose was to investigate the differences in dynamic functional connectivity within the contralateral brain in patients with chronic ICA occlusion using resting-state fMRI.

In this trial, 21 patients with chronic occlusion of the ICA (17 men and 4 women) and 11 patients with chronic occlusion of the left ICA (10 men and 1 woman) underwent resting-state fMRI. The control group consisted of 10 healthy men and 6 healthy women. The Mini-Mental State Examination and the Montreal Cognitive Assessment Scale were used to evaluate cognitive function. Cluster analysis and dynamic graph theory were used to analyze the dynamic functional connectivity data obtained through the sliding window method.

The analysis of dynamic graph theory revealed that the regions affected in patients with occlusion of the right ICA primarily involved the primary motor sensory network (precentral gyrus and postcentral gyrus) and the anterior default network (orbital inferior frontal gyrus and anterior cingulate gyrus). The damaged regions of the contralateral hemisphere in patients with left ICA occlusion primarily encompassed the posterior default network (precuneus, inferior parietal lobe, angular gyrus, and amygdala), the salience network (Rolandic operculum, middle cingulate cortex, and amygdala), and the frontal parietal lobe network (angular gyrus, supramarginal gyrus, and inferior parietal lobe). Most of these brain regions are localized within the dominant hemispheric areas.

Cluster analysis and dynamic graph theory analysis of contralateral brain regions in patients with chronic ICA occlusion on different sides revealed significant variations.