Hypergraph-Based Multimodal MRI Reveals Thalamus-Mediated Network Dyscoordination Underlying Motor Impairments in...

Leveraging hypergraph theory and spatio-temporal graph convolutional network (ST-GCN), this study uses multimodal MRI to elucidate thalamus-mediated high-order network dyscoordination of motor impairment in Parkinson's disease (PD).

64 PD patients and 64 age- and sex-matched healthy controls (HC) underwent resting-state functional MRI (rs-fMRI) and T1-weighted anatomical imaging (T1WI). Functional hypergraphs were constructed using dynamic thresholds on Pearson correlations; structural hypergraphs were generated from gray matter volume (GMV) via k-nearest neighbors (KNN). ST-GCN was employed to fuse the multimodal hypergraph features, and discriminative features were identified via stratified five-fold cross-validation. Group differences and clinical correlations were assessed using t-tests/Mann-Whitney U and Spearman's correlation (P<0.05), respectively.

Compared to HC, eight key brain regions exhibited abnormalities in PD: left precentral gyrus (PreCG.L), left middle frontal gyrus (MFG.L), right superior occipital gyrus (SOG.R), left thalamus (THA.L), left hippocampus (HIP.L), right caudate nucleus (CAU.R), right supplementary motor area (SMA.R), and right paracentral lobule (PCL.R). Three significant hyperedges were identified: left putamen-left thalamus-right supplementary motor area (PUT.L-THA.L-SMA.R), right globus pallidus-right thalamus-right cerebellar Crus II (PAL.R-THA.R-Crus II.R), and left thalamus-left hippocampus-right angular gyrus (THA.L-HIP.L-ANG.R). Hyperedge strengths revealed a modest increase in PUT.L-THA.L-SMA.R, a significant increase in THA.L-HIP.L-ANG.R (P<0.05), and a reduction in PAL.R-THA.R-Crus II.R. These hyperedges were all positively correlated with UPDRS-III scores (P<0.05).

Multimodal hypergraph analysis reveals high-order network dysregulation of motor impairment in PD, involving the cerebellum, limbic system, and cortical-basal ganglia circuits, mediated by the thalamus. Furthermore, hyperedges may serve as potential biomarkers for motor dysfunction.