Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 13, 2026
Translational Brain Mapping at the University of Rochester Medical Center: Preserving the Mind Through Personalized Brain Mapping
Published on: August 12, 2019
Exploring relationships between abnormal within-network functional connectivity, preoperative brain tumor variables,
Bryce J Laurin1, Randall Treffy, Christina Feller
1School of Medicine, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.
Objective:
Neuropsychological symptoms in people with brain tumors are common; however, they are often incompletely explained by tumor variables (such as anatomical location, size, or grade) and may be more directly related to changes in large-scale functional network connectivity. Here we examine these relationships.
Methods:
Fifty-one participants underwent pre-operative resting-state functional MRIs and three neuropsychological tests-Trail Making Test-Part-B (TMT-B), WAIS-IV Digit-Span Sequencing (WAIS-DS), and Controlled Oral Word Association Test (COWAT). Within-network functional connectivity of the central executive (CEN), default mode (DMN), language (LANG), and salience (SN) networks were compared to healthy controls. Spearman correlations (ρ) were calculated between neuropsychological z-scores, abnormal (>2 standard deviations from control means) within-network connectivity, and tumor variables while controlling for multiple comparisons. Exploratory, statistical mediation analyses then evaluated if relevant tumor variables affected neuropsychological performance via changes in functional connectivity.
Results:
Significant correlations included: (1) WAIS-DS performance to lesional-SN (ρ = 0.53, P = 0.006), lesional-CEN (ρ = 0.42, P = 0.023), and right-SN (ρ = 0.42, P = 0.023) connectivity; (2) COWAT performance to right-SN (ρ = 0.50, P = 0.012), lesional-SN connectivity (ρ = 0.45, P =0 .017), and lesion laterality (ρ = 0.47, P = 0.017); and (3) TMT-B to lesional-LANG (ρ = 0.46, P =0 .017), right-CEN (ρ = 0.45, P = 0.017), and bilateral-LANG (ρ = 0.42, P = 0.024) connectivity. Mediation analyses revealed the following effects: (1) lesion laterality on TMT-B was fully mediated via right-CEN connectivity (path a*b; β = 0.696 [0.13, 1.419]); (2) IDH-status on WAIS-DS was fully mediated via lesional-CEN connectivity (path a*b; β = 0.251 [0.015, 0.588]); and (3) lesion laterality on COWAT was partially mediated via right-SN connectivity (path a*b; β = 0.333 [0.004-0.72]).
Conclusions:
Our data support the hypothesis that functional network connectivity may explain some neuropsychological heterogeneity across otherwise anatomically and oncologically similar cases. Notably, more abnormal connectivity correlated with better performance, suggesting compensatory reorganization may be at least partially responsible.
