Resting-state brain networks: literature review and clinical applications

Abstract

This review focuses on resting-state functional connectivity, a functional MRI technique which allows the study of spontaneous brain activity generated under resting conditions. This approach is useful to explore the brain's functional organization and to examine if it is altered in neurological or psychiatric diseases. Resting-state functional connectivity has revealed a number of networks which are consistently found in healthy subjects and represent specific patterns of synchronous activity. In this review, we examine the behavioral, physiological and neurological evidences relevant to this coherent brain activity and, in particular, to each network. The investigation of functional connectivity appears promising from a clinical perspective, considering the amount of evidence regarding the importance of spontaneous activity and that resting-state paradigms are inherently simple to implement. We also discuss some examples of existing clinical applications, such as in Alzheimer's disease, and emerging possibilities such as in pre-operative mapping and disorders of consciousness.

Cortical plasticity after brachial plexus injury and repair: a resting-state functional MRI study

“…The functional images were coregistered with the structural image in Montreal Neurological Institute 152 (MNI 152) standard space, and the data were resampled to 2-mm resolution. 2,7,[32][33][34]38 Followed by the preprocessing steps, independent component analysis (ICA) was performed to extract RSNs and exclude the noise components for subjects by multivariate exploratory linear optimized decomposition into independent components (MELODIC). 4,34 The noise components were examined visually and excluded using the fsl_regfilt function in FSL.…”

“…5,6,9,[13][14][15]18,19,30 Resting-state fMRI (rs-fMRI) is a novel method of examining the functional networks of the brain and is beneficial because it does not depend on task performances, it allows data to be easily acquired, and it enables the evaluation of functional networks. 2,7,32,38 Although task-based fMRI cannot be performed for patients with BPI because their affected limb is completely paralyzed, rs-fMRI analysis can be done without patients performing any task. Thus, rs-fMRI shows tremendous potential for increasing our understanding of cortical functions in nerve injury and repair.…”

Dynamics of brain networks in the aesthetic appreciation

“…Both recent experience and consolidated abilities leave memory traces that affect the resting-state brain networks (15,29). This is particularly important regarding the specific conditions of TW0, taken as the resting state of our experiment.…”

“…Despite this variability, resting-state studies using different subjects, different methods, and different types of acquisition protocols have consistently reported that the DMN consists at least of the precuneus, medial frontal, inferior parietal, and medial temporal areas (11). The breadth of the DMN has been extended to include ventral anterior cingulate cortex, bilateral inferior parietal cortex, left inferolateral temporal cortex (14), and even the hippocampus (14,15).…”

Male‐to‐female gender dysphoria: Gender‐specific differences in resting‐state networks

“…Those regions are believed to be functionally connected (Biswal, Van Kylen, & Hyde, 1997; Biswal et al., 2010; Greicius, Krasnow, Reiss, & Menon, 2003; van den Heuvel & Hulshoff Pol, 2010). Based on their functional and/or anatomical overlap with well‐known functional networks, distinct resting‐state functional networks (RSN) have been identified (Beckmann & Smith, 2005; Damoiseaux et al., 2006; Rosazza & Minati, 2011; Seeley et al., 2007; Smith et al., 2009, 2013). It is believed that these RSN reflect the brain's function beyond explicit tasks and represent the intrinsic functional architecture of the human brain (Sadaghiani & Kleinschmidt, 2013; Smith et al., 2009).…”