Loss of resting interhemispheric functional connectivity after complete section of the corpus callosum.
Slow (<0.1 Hz), spontaneous fluctuations in the functional magnetic resonance imaging blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) signal have been shown to exhibit phase coherence within functionally related areas of the brain. Surprisingly, this phenomenon appears to transcend levels of consciousness. The genesis of coherent BOLD fluctuations remains to be fully explained. We present a resting state functional connectivity study of a 6-year-old child with a radiologically normal brain imaged both before and after complete section of the corpus callosum for the treatment of intractable epilepsy. Postoperatively, there was a striking loss of interhemispheric BOLD correlations with preserved intrahemispheric correlations. These unique data provide important insights into the relationship between connectional anatomy and functional organization of the human brain. Such observations have the potential to increase our understanding of large-scale brain systems in health and disease as well as improve the treatment of neurologic disorders.
Department of Neurosurgery, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri 63110, USA. johnstonj@nsurg.wustl.edu
James M
JM
Johnston
S Neil
SN
Vaishnavi
Matthew D
MD
Smyth
Dongyang
D
Zhang
Biyu J
BJ
He
John M
JM
Zempel
Joshua S
JS
Shimony
Abraham Z
AZ
Snyder
Marcus E
ME
Raichle
D002648:Child; D003337:Corpus Callosum / Q000502:physiology* / Q000601:surgery*; D004827:Epilepsy / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000601:surgery; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods; D008297:Male