title: Small-World Brain Network and Dynamic Functional Distribution in Patients with Subcortical Vascular Cognitive Impairment.
abstract: To investigate the topological properties of the functional connectivity and their relationships with cognition impairment in subcortical vascular cognitive impairment (SVCI) patients, resting-state fMRI and graph theory approaches were employed in 23 SVCI patients and 20 healthy controls. Functional connectivity between 90 brain regions was estimated using bivariate correlation analysis and thresholded to construct a set of undirected graphs. Moreover, all of them were subjected to a battery of cognitive assessment, and the correlations between graph metrics and cognitive performance were further analyzed. Our results are as follows: functional brain networks of both SVCI patients and controls showed small-world attributes over a range of thresholds(0.15≤sparsity≤0.40). However, global topological organization of the functional brain networks in SVCI was significantly disrupted, as indicated by reduced global and local efficiency, clustering coefficients and increased characteristic path lengths relative to normal subjects. The decreased activity areas in SVCI predominantly targeted in the frontal-temporal lobes, while subcortical regions showed increased topological properties, which are suspected to compensate for the inefficiency of the functional network. We also demonstrated that altered brain network properties in SVCI are closely correlated with general cognitive and praxis dysfunction. The disruption of whole-brain topological organization of the functional connectome provides insight into the functional changes in the human brain in SVCI.
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, the First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medicial University, Anhui, China.
authors.forename: Yongqiang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, the First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medicial University, Anhui, China.
authors.forename: Xia
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, the First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medicial University, Anhui, China.
authors.forename: Haibao
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, the First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medicial University, Anhui, China.
authors.forename: Xiaopeng
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, the First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medicial University, Anhui, China.
authors.forename: Xiaoqun
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, the First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medicial University, Anhui, China.
authors.forename: Liyan
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, the First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medicial University, Anhui, China.
authors.forename: Chao
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, the First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medicial University, Anhui, China.
authors.forename: Zhongwu
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Sun
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D001921:Brain / Q000503:physiopathology*; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000503:physiopathology*; D063132:Connectome; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000503:physiopathology*; D009434:Neural Pathways / Q000503:physiopathology