Altered small-world functional network topology in patients with optic neuritis: A resting- state fMRI study

Abstract

Purpose: This study investigated changes in small-world topology and brain functional connectivity in patients with optic neuritis (ON) by resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) and based on graph theory.Methods：A total of 21 patients with ON (8 males and 13 females) and 21 matched healthy control subjects (8 males and 13 females) were enrolled at the First Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University and underwent rs-fMRI. Data were preprocessed and the brain was divided into 116 regions of interest. Small-world network parameters and area under the integral curve (AUC) were calculated from pairwise brain interval correlation coefficients.Differences in brain network parameter AUCs between the 2 groups were evaluated with the independent sample t-test, and changes in brain connection strength between ON patients and control subjects were assessed by network-based statistical analysis. Results:In the sparsity range from 0.08 to 0.48, both groups exhibited small-world attributes.Compared to the control group, global network efficiency, normalized clustering coefficient, and small-world value were higher whereas the clustering coefficient value was lower in ON patients. There were no differences in characteristic path length, local network efficiency, and normalized characteristic path length between groups. In addition, ON patients had lower brain functional connectivity strength among the rolandic operculum, medial superior frontal gyrus, insula, median cingulate and paracingulate gyri, amygdala, superior parietal gyrus, inferior parietal gyrus, supramarginal gyrus, angular gyrus, lenticular nucleus, pallidum, superior temporal gyrus, cerebellum_Crus1_L, and left cerebellum_Crus6_L compared to the control group (P < 0.05). Conclusion:The brain network in ON has a small-world attributes but shows reduced and abnormal connectivity compared to normal subjects. These findings provide a further insight 3 into the neural pathogenesis of ON and reveal specific fMRI findings that can serve as diagnostic and prognostic indices.

Classifying Vulnerability to Sleep Deprivation Using Resting-State Functional MRI Graph Theory Metrics

“…wear earplugs, open their eyes, stay awake, and try to avoid sleeping (Song et al, 2020). Cotton pads and tape were used to minimize head motion.…”

<p>Gradually Increased Interhemispheric Functional Connectivity During One Night of Sleep Deprivation</p>

“…To further reduce the effects of nuisance factors, signals from cerebrospinal fluid and white matter were also regressed. Then, a Dartel toolbox was used to normalize the data into Montreal Neurological Institute space, 14 and the resulting images were finally smoothed with a 6 mm (full width at half-maximum) Gaussian kernel and band pass–filtered (0.01–0.08 Hz). rs-fMRI data preprocessing and VMHC computation were all based on DPABI 4.0 ( http://rfmri.org/DPABI ) software.…”

Reduced thalamic resting‐state functional connectivity and impaired cognition in acute abstinent heroin users

“…Exclusion criteria for all subjects included a history of head injury, additional substance use except nicotine and alcohol over the past 5 years, and contraindications for magnetic resonance scanning. BOLD functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) imaging was employed to quantify the RSFC strength between thalamic ROIs and brain regions (Song et al, 2020). The duration, dosage, craving, withdrawal symptoms and the withdrawal period of heroin use were collected in HU group.…”