title: Altered Functional Connectivity in Patients with Subcortical Vascular Cognitive Impairment--A Resting-State Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study.
abstract: Recent neuroimaging studies have shown that people with subcortical vascular cognitive impairment (sVCI) have structural and functional abnormalities in the frontal lobe and subcortical brain sites. In this study, we used seed-based resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) analysis and voxel-mirrored homotopic connectivity (VMHC) techniques to investigate the alteration of rsFC in patients with sVCI. rsFC and structural magnetic resonance images were acquired for 51 patients with subcortical cerebrovascular disease. All patients were subdivided based on cognitive status into 29 with sVCI and 22 controls; patient characteristics were matched. rsFC of the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) and VMHC were calculated separately, and rsFC of the PCC and VMHC between the two groups were compared. The regions showing abnormal rsFC of the PCC or VMHC in sVCI patients were adopted as regions of interest for correlation analyses. Our results are as follows: The patients with sVCI exhibited increases in rsFC in the left middle temporal lobe, right inferior temporal lobe and left superior frontal gyrus, and significant decreases in rsFC of the left thalamus with the PCC. sVCI patients showed a significant deficit in VMHC between the bilateral lingual gyrus, putamen, and precentral gyrus. Additionally, the z-memory score was significantly positively associated with connectivity between the left thalamus and the PCC (r = 0.41, p = 0.03, uncorrected) in the sVCI group. Our findings suggest that the frontal lobe and subcortical brain sites play an important role in the pathogenesis of sVCI. Furthermore, rsFC between the left thalamus and the PCC might indicate the severity of sVCI.
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, Ren Ji Hospital, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200127, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Weina
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Ding
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Ren Ji Hospital, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200127, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Wenwei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Cao
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, Ren Ji Hospital, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200127, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Yao
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, Ren Ji Hospital, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200127, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Yawen
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, Ren Ji Hospital, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200127, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Xue
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, Ren Ji Hospital, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200127, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Yan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Ren Ji Hospital, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200127, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Qun
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, Ren Ji Hospital, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200127, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Jianrong
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Xu
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D001931:Brain Mapping / Q000379:methods*; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002561:Cerebrovascular Disorders / Q000150:complications*; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000209:etiology / Q000473:pathology*; D005260:Female; D006179:Gyrus Cinguli / Q000473:pathology*; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D009778:Occipital Lobe / Q000473:pathology*; D012146:Rest / Q000502:physiology*