title: Alteration and reorganization of functional networks: a new perspective in brain injury study.
abstract: Plasticity is the mechanism underlying the brain's potential capability to compensate injury. Recently several studies have shown how functional connections among the brain areas are severely altered by brain injury and plasticity leading to a reorganization of the networks. This new approach studies the impact of brain injury by means of alteration of functional interactions. The concept of functional connectivity refers to the statistical interdependencies between physiological time series simultaneously recorded in various areas of the brain and it could be an essential tool for brain functional studies, being its deviation from healthy reference an indicator for damage. In this article, we review studies investigating functional connectivity changes after brain injury and subsequent recovery, providing an accessible introduction to common mathematical methods to infer functional connectivity, exploring their capabilities, future perspectives, and clinical uses in brain injury studies.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience, Centre for Biomedical Technology, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid Madrid, Spain.
authors.forename: Nazareth P
authors.initials: NP
authors.lastname: Castellanos
authors.forename: Ricardo
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Bajo
authors.forename: Pablo
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Cuesta
authors.forename: José Antonio
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Villacorta-Atienza
authors.forename: Nuria
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Paúl
authors.forename: Juan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Garcia-Prieto
authors.forename: Francisco
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Del-Pozo
authors.forename: Fernando
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Maestú