Fiber connectivity density mapping in end-stage renal disease patients: a preliminary study

Abstract

Abnormal brain structural connectivity of end-stage renal disease (ESRD) is associated with cognitive impairment. However, the characteristics of cortical structural connectivity have not been investigated in ESRD patients. The current study aimed to investigate the structural connectivity of the entire cerebral cortex in ESRD patients. Twenty-ve ESRD patients and 20 healthy controls were recruited for this study; all participants underwent diffusion tensor imaging and high-resolution T1-weighted imaging scanning.Fiber connectivity density (FiCD) mapping was performed to calculate structural connectivity of the whole cortex, and between-group differences were compared in a vertexwise manner. We also tested the associations between FiCD changes and clinical information using Pearson correlation analysis. The results demonstrated that the mean global FiCD value was signi cantly decreased in ESRD patients compared with that of HCs. Notably, FiCD values were signi cantly changed (decreased or increased) in certain cortical regions, which mainly involved the bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), inferior parietal, lateral temporal and middle occipital cortex (P < 0.01 with Monte Carlo correction). Moreover, in ESRD patients, the increased FiCD values in the right middle frontal gyrus were negatively correlated with serum creatinine (r=-0.473, p = 0.017) and urea levels (r=-0.511, p = 0.009). The increased FiCD values in the left middle frontal gyrus were negatively correlated with dialysis duration (r=-0.577, p = 0.003) and parathyroid hormone (PTH) levels (r=-0.552, p = 0.004). Our results suggested that ESRD patients exhibited extensive impaired cortical structural connectivity. And there may be a compensation mechanism of cortical structural recombination that plays a role in the way the brain adapts to maintain optimal network function. Moreover, serum creatinine, urea and PTH levels may be risk factors for brain structural network decompensation in ESRD patients.

Investigation of the correlation between brain functional connectivity and ESRD based on low‐order and high‐order feature analysis of rs‐fMRI

“…This implies that ESRD patients may have brain damage in both the left and right hemispheres to a certain degree. This is consistent with the findings we previously obtained using the fiber connectivity density (FiCD) mapping method 50 …”

“…where W denotes the window length and Δt denotes the step size. In this study, W∈ [20,30,40,50,60], Δt∈ [1,3,5,7,9,11].…”

“…This is consistent with the findings we previously obtained using the fiber connectivity density (FiCD) mapping method. 50 In addition, most of the abnormal functional connectivity occurs within subnetworks. Only two functional connectivities occur in inter-subnetworks, that is, the connectivities between SMN-EAN and Visual-Cerebel.…”

Neuroimaging anomalies in asymptomatic middle cerebral artery steno-occlusive disease with normal-appearing white matter

“…A recent technique named fiber connectivity density (FiCD) mapping was proposed to map the structural connectivity properties (e.g., fractional anisotropy, or mean diffusivity) to the cortical surface, to create a common space for comparison with results from brain functional analysis and cortical thickness analysis, which can automatically identify brain regions with significant differences at the whole-brain level without defining ROIs ( 18 , 19 ). Studies had shown that FiCD values were significantly changed in cerebral small-vessel disease (CSVD) patients ( 20 ) with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and in patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) ( 21 ). FC can reveal brain activity, which has become an important tool in the study of neurological diseases ( 22 ), and numerous studies proved that decreased FC was related to impaired cognition in various diseases.…”