title: Computational modeling of resting-state activity demonstrates markers of normalcy in children with prenatal or perinatal stroke.
abstract: Children who sustain a prenatal or perinatal brain injury in the form of a stroke develop remarkably normal cognitive functions in certain areas, with a particular strength in language skills. A dominant explanation for this is that brain regions from the contralesional hemisphere "take over" their functions, whereas the damaged areas and other ipsilesional regions play much less of a role. However, it is difficult to tease apart whether changes in neural activity after early brain injury are due to damage caused by the lesion or by processes related to postinjury reorganization. We sought to differentiate between these two causes by investigating the functional connectivity (FC) of brain areas during the resting state in human children with early brain injury using a computational model. We simulated a large-scale network consisting of realistic models of local brain areas coupled through anatomical connectivity information of healthy and injured participants. We then compared the resulting simulated FC values of healthy and injured participants with the empirical ones. We found that the empirical connectivity values, especially of the damaged areas, correlated better with simulated values of a healthy brain than those of an injured brain. This result indicates that the structural damage caused by an early brain injury is unlikely to have an adverse and sustained impact on the functional connections, albeit during the resting state, of damaged areas. Therefore, these areas could continue to play a role in the development of near-normal function in certain domains such as language in these children.
authors.affiliation: Center for Brain and Cognition, Computational Neuroscience Group, Department of Information and Communication Technologies, University of Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona 08018, Spain, mohit.adhikari@upf.edu.
authors.forename: Mohit H
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Adhikari
authors.affiliation: Laboratory for Social and Neural Systems Research, Department of Economics, University of Zürich, CH-8006 Zürich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Anjali
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Raja Beharelle
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, Lausanne University Hospital and University of Lausanne, 1011 Lausanne, Switzerland, Signal Processing Laboratory 5, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Alessandra
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Griffa
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, Lausanne University Hospital and University of Lausanne, 1011 Lausanne, Switzerland, Signal Processing Laboratory 5, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Patric
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Hagmann
authors.affiliation: Departments of Anatomy and Neurobiology and Department of Neurology, University of California, Irvine, California 92868.
authors.forename: Ana
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Solodkin
authors.affiliation: Rotman Research Institute, Baycrest, Toronto, Ontario M6A 2E1, Canada, Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3G3, Canada, and.
authors.forename: Anthony R
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: McIntosh
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, University of California, Irvine, California 92868.
authors.forename: Steven L
authors.initials: SL
authors.lastname: Small
authors.affiliation: Center for Brain and Cognition, Computational Neuroscience Group, Department of Information and Communication Technologies, University of Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona 08018, Spain, Institucio Catalana de la Recerca I Estudis Avancats, University of Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona 08010, Spain.
authors.forename: Gustavo
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Deco
mesh_terms: D001921:Brain / Q000098:blood supply; D001930:Brain Injuries / Q000209:etiology* / Q000473:pathology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002648:Child; D003198:Computer Simulation; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D007806:Language Disorders / Q000209:etiology; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008959:Models, Neurological; D009434:Neural Pathways / Q000473:pathology*; D017711:Nonlinear Dynamics; D010100:Oxygen / Q000097:blood; D020521:Stroke / Q000150:complications*
chemical_list: D010100:Oxygen
keywords: functional connectivity; network model; prenatal/perinatal stroke; resting-state fMRI; structural connectivity