Regional Alteration within the Cerebellum and the Reorganization of the Cerebrocerebellar System following Poststroke Aphasia

Abstract

Recently, an increasing number of studies have highlighted the role of the cerebellum in language processing. However, the role of neural reorganization within the cerebellum as well as within the cerebrocerebellar system caused by poststroke aphasia remains unknown. To solve this problem, in the present study, we investigated regional alterations of the cerebellum as well as the functional reorganization of the cerebrocerebellar circuit by combining structural and resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) techniques. Twenty patients diagnosed with aphasia following left-hemispheric stroke and 20 age-matched healthy controls (HCs) were recruited in this study. The Western Aphasia Battery (WAB) test was used to assess the participants’ language ability. Gray matter volume, spontaneous brain activity, functional connectivity, and effective connectivity were examined in each participant. We discovered that gray matter volumes in right cerebellar lobule VI and right Crus I were significantly lower in the patient group, and the brain activity within these regions was significantly correlated with WAB scores. We also discovered decreased functional connectivity within the crossed cerebrocerebellar circuit, which was significantly correlated with WAB scores. Moreover, altered information flow between the cerebellum and the contralateral cerebrum was found. Together, our findings provide evidence for regional alterations within the cerebellum and the reorganization of the cerebrocerebellar system following poststroke aphasia and highlight the important role of the cerebellum in language processing within aphasic individuals after stroke.

Altered cerebellar functional connectivity in chronic subcortical stroke patients

“…(Schmahmann and Caplan, 2006;Reetz et al, 2012), such as the regulation of language and working memory (Nitschke et al, 2005;Schmahmann et al, 2019). Previous studies have revealed the functional alternations of the CPL in stroke (Li et al, 2013;Tang et al, 2016;Fan et al, 2019;Zhang et al, 2022). For example, Li et al (2013) found, relative to HCs, stroke participants showed reduced FCs between the bilateral cerebellar lobule IX and the ipsilesional prefrontal cortex (medial part of the prefrontal cortex and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex) and lateral parietal cortex.…”

“…For CAL, stroke participants showed increased FCs between the ipsilesional anterior inferior cerebellum and superior cerebellum (Wang et al, 2010) and between the right anterior inferior cerebellum and left middle frontal gyrus (MFG) (Yin et al, 2014) compared with healthy controls (HCs). While, for CPL, stroke participants showed increased FCs between the ipsilesional CPL and the contralesional primary motor cortex (Yin et al, 2012), and reduced FCs between the bilateral cerebellar lobule IX and the ipsilesional medial part of the prefrontal cortex, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, lateral parietal cortex (Li et al, 2013), between the right CPL and left precentral gyrus (PreCG), inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), inferior parietal lobule (IPL), middle temporal gyrus (MTG) (Tang et al, 2016), between the bilateral CPL and left IPL (Fan et al, 2019), and between the right cerebellar lobule VI and left PreCG (Zhang et al, 2022) compared with HCs. These findings demonstrated that the spontaneous brain activities in the cerebellar subregions were disrupted by stroke, and the CAL and CPL experienced different functional reorganization patterns after stroke.…”

“…The present study aims to examine the differences in FC of bilateral CAL and CPL between stroke participants and HCs. Based on the previous findings regarding the abnormal functional activity of CAL and CPL (Wang et al, 2010;Yin et al, 2012Yin et al, , 2014Li et al, 2013;Fan et al, 2019;Zhang et al, 2022) and their relationships with behavior performances in stroke participants (Nitschke et al, 2005;Loubinoux et al, 2007;Stoodley et al, 2016;Schmahmann et al, 2019), we hypothesized that: (1) the FC of CAL and CPL in stroke participants would show different functional alterations patterns compared to HCs; (2) the FC reorganization of CAL and CPL in some survived regions are significantly correlated with the sensorimotor/executive and high-order cognitive functions across stroke participants, respectively.…”

construction of China-ASEAN Zhuang and Thai language culture converged community in the context of the belt and road initiative

“…The historical process of Han migration to southern China led to the assimilation of Zhuang people and had a negative impact on Zhuang people identity. Zhuang people's way of life, language habits and other aspects are deeply influenced by the integration of Chinese culture, the boundary of national identity is more vague, the "Zhuang" became the imagined community of many young people who were only related to the Zhuang and were deeply influenced by Han culture (Zhang et al, 2022). Zhuang people has become almost entirely sinicized after a long period of integration, with the majority belonging to the sinicized Zhuang people, despite the preponderance of the ethnic minority population.…”

Long-Term Lower Limb Motor Function Correlates with Middle Cerebellar Peduncle Structural Integrity in Sub-Acute Stroke: A ROI-Based MRI Cohort Study

“…Studies of Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and aphasia have confirmed that the cerebellum may be involved in modifying the performance of learned sequences such as cycling that are based on procedural memory-related brain activity (cerebellum–striatum–frontal circuit) [ 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 ].…”