Functional-structural large-scale brain networks are correlated with neurocognitive impairment in acute mild traumatic brain injury

Abstract

Background: This study was conducted to investigate topological changes in large-scale functional connectivity (FC) and structural connectivity (SC) networks in acute mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) and determine their potential relevance to cognitive impairment.Methods: Seventy-one patients with acute mTBI (29 males, 42 females, mean age 43.54 years) from Nanjing First Hospital and 57 matched healthy controls (HC) (33 males, 24 females, mean age 46.16 years) from the local community were recruited in this prospective study. Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) were acquired within 14 days (mean 3.29 days) after the onset of mTBI. Then, large-scale FC and SC networks with 116 regions from the automated anatomical labeling (AAL) brain atlas were constructed. Graph theory analysis was used to analyze global and nodal metrics. Finally, correlations were assessed between topological properties and neurocognitive performances evaluated by the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA). Bonferroni correction was performed out for multiple comparisons in all involved analyses.Results: Compared with HC, acute mTBI patients had a higher normalized clustering coefficient (γ) for FC (Cohen's d=4.076), and higher γ and small worldness (σ) for SC (Cohen's d=0.390 and Cohen's d=0.395).The mTBI group showed aberrant nodal degree (Dc), nodal efficiency (Ne), and nodal local efficiency (Nloc) for FC and aberrant Dc, nodal betweenness (Bc), nodal clustering coefficient (NCp) and Ne for SC mainly in the frontal and temporal, cerebellum, and subcortical areas. Acute mTBI patients also had higher functionalstructural coupling strength at both the group and individual levels (Cohen's d=0.415). These aberrant global and nodal topological properties at functional and structural levels were associated with attention, orientation, memory, and naming performances (all P<0.05).Conclusions: Our findings suggested that large-scale FC and SC network changes, higher correlation between FC and SC and cognitive impairment can be detected in the acute stage of mTBI. These network aberrances may be a compensatory mechanism for cognitive impairment in acute mTBI patients.

Disrupted resting-state functional connectivity and network topology in mild traumatic brain injury: an arterial spin labelling study

“…In contrast, studies of acute mTBI have certain advantages in identifying the changes in brain structure and function during the onset, thus providing important information on the pathogenesis of mTBI. Abnormal changes in CBF in the insula are consistent with previous studies based on functional MRI (fMRI), 27 , 28 suggesting that this may be one of the core regions for the onset of acute mTBI. In addition, acute mTBI also had abnormal CBF in frontal regions, especially the medial prefrontal gyrus, and increased CBF in the bilateral temporal lobes.…”

Abnormal Topological Organization of White Matter Structural Networks in Normal Tension Glaucoma Revealed via Diffusion Tensor Tractography

“…Previous articles have provided a comprehensive and detailed description of these global and nodal metrics [19]. In this study, we used a sparsity threshold ranging from 0.05 to 0.5 with a step of 0.01 to analyze topological network properties to reduce the effect of bias caused by a single threshold [20]. The metrics of the structural network were calculated as the area under the curve (AUC).…”