title: Very Early Brain Damage Leads to Remodeling of the Working Memory System in Adulthood: A Combined fMRI/Tractography Study.
abstract: The human brain can adapt to overcome injury even years after an initial insult. One hypothesis states that early brain injury survivors, by taking advantage of critical periods of high plasticity during childhood, should recover more successfully than those who suffer injury later in life. This hypothesis has been challenged by recent studies showing worse cognitive outcome in individuals with early brain injury, compared with individuals with later brain injury, with working memory particularly affected. We invited individuals who suffered perinatal brain injury (PBI) for an fMRI/diffusion MRI tractography study of working memory and hypothesized that, 30 years after the initial injury, working memory deficits in the PBI group would remain, despite compensatory activation in areas outside the typical working memory network. Furthermore we hypothesized that the amount of functional reorganization would be related to the level of injury to the dorsal cingulum tract, which connects medial frontal and parietal working memory structures. We found that adults who suffered PBI did not significantly differ from controls in working memory performance. They exhibited less activation in classic frontoparietal working memory areas and a relative overactivation of bilateral perisylvian cortex compared with controls. Structurally, the dorsal cingulum volume and hindrance-modulated orientational anisotropy was significantly reduced in the PBI group. Furthermore there was uniquely in the PBI group a significant negative correlation between the volume of this tract and activation in the bilateral perisylvian cortex and a positive correlation between this activation and task performance. This provides the first evidence of compensatory plasticity of the working memory network following PBI.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychosis Studies, froudiss@tcd.ie.
authors.forename: Seán
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Froudist-Walsh
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychosis Studies.
authors.forename: Vyacheslav
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Karolis
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychosis Studies.
authors.forename: Chiara
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4703-0990
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Caldinelli
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychosis Studies.
authors.forename: Philip J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Brittain
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychosis Studies.
authors.forename: Jasmin
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kroll
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychosis Studies, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Hospital General Universitario Gregorio Marañón, Centro de Investigación Biomédica En Red de Salud Mental, El Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria del Hospital Gregoria Marañón, School of Medicine, Universidad Complutense, 28009 Madrid, Spain.
authors.forename: Elisa
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Rodríguez-Toscano
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychosis Studies.
authors.forename: Marcello
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tesse
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychosis Studies.
authors.forename: Matthew
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Colquhoun
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychosis Studies, Medical Research Council, Clinical Sciences Centre, Institute of Clinical Sciences, Hammersmith Hospital Campus, Imperial College London, London W12 0HS, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Oliver
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Howes
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuroimaging, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's Health Partners, King's College London, London WC2R 2LS, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Flavio
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Dell'Acqua
authors.affiliation: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Unité Mixte de Recherche 7225, Inserm, Universite Pierre et Marie Curie-Paris 6, UMR_S 1127, Centre de Recherche de l'Institut du Cerveau et de la Moelle épinière, GH Pitié-Salpêtrière, 75013 Paris, France, Natbrainlab, Brain and Spine Institute, 75013 Paris, France, and.
authors.forename: Michel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Thiebaut de Schotten
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychosis Studies.
authors.forename: Robin M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Murray
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuroimaging, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's Health Partners, King's College London, London WC2R 2LS, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Steven C R
authors.initials: SC
authors.lastname: Williams
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychosis Studies, Centre for the Developing Brain, Division of Imaging Sciences and Biomedical Engineering, King's Health Partners, King's College London, St. Thomas' Hospital, London WC2R 2LS, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Chiara
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Nosarti
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D016880:Anisotropy; D001921:Brain / Q000098:blood supply* / Q000473:pathology*; D001930:Brain Injuries / Q000150:complications / Q000209:etiology / Q000473:pathology; D001931:Brain Mapping; D056324:Diffusion Tensor Imaging; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D062071:Infant, Extremely Premature; D007361:Intelligence Tests; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008569:Memory Disorders / Q000209:etiology*; D008570:Memory, Short-Term / Q000502:physiology*; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010100:Oxygen / Q000097:blood; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D012737:Sex Factors
chemical_list: D010100:Oxygen
keywords: fMRI; perinatal brain injury; plasticity; spherical deconvolution; tractography; working memory