title: Resting State Brain Entropy Alterations in Relapsing Remitting Multiple Sclerosis.
abstract: Brain entropy (BEN) mapping provides a novel approach to characterize brain temporal dynamics, a key feature of human brain. Using resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rsfMRI), reliable and spatially distributed BEN patterns have been identified in normal brain, suggesting a potential use in clinical populations since temporal brain dynamics and entropy may be altered in disease conditions. The purpose of this study was to characterize BEN in multiple sclerosis (MS), a neurodegenerative disease that affects millions of people. Since currently there is no cure for MS, developing treatment or medication that can slow down its progression represents a high research priority, for which validating a brain marker sensitive to disease and the related functional impairments is essential. Because MS can start long time before any measurable symptoms and structural deficits, assessing the dynamic brain activity and correspondingly BEN may provide a critical way to study MS and its progression. Because BEN is new to MS, we aimed to assess BEN alterations in the relapsing-remitting MS (RRMS) patients using a patient versus control design, to examine the correlation of BEN to clinical measurements, and to check the correlation of BEN to structural brain measures which have been more often used in MS studies. As compared to controls, RRMS patients showed increased BEN in motor areas, executive control area, spatial coordinating area, and memory system. Increased BEN was related to greater disease severity as measured by the expanded disability status scale (EDSS) and greater tissue damage as indicated by the mean diffusivity. Patients also showed decreased BEN in other places, which was associated with less disability or fatigue, indicating a disease-related BEN re-distribution. Our results suggest BEN as a novel and useful tool for characterizing RRMS.
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, the First Affiliated Hospital, Nanchang University, Nanchang, Jiangxi Province, China.|Jiangxi Province Medical Imaging Research Institute, Nanchang, Jiangxi Province, China.
authors.forename: Fuqing
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: Department of Oncology, the Second Hospital of Nanchang, Nanchang, Jiangxi Province, China.
authors.forename: Ying
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhuang
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, the First Affiliated Hospital, Nanchang University, Nanchang, Jiangxi Province, China.|Jiangxi Province Medical Imaging Research Institute, Nanchang, Jiangxi Province, China.
authors.forename: Honghan
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Gong
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, the First Affiliated Hospital, Nanchang University, Nanchang, Jiangxi Province, China.|Jiangxi Province Medical Imaging Research Institute, Nanchang, Jiangxi Province, China.
authors.forename: Jie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhan
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States of America.
authors.forename: Murray
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Grossman
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China.|Zhejiang Key Laboratory for Research in Assessment of Cognitive Impairments, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China.
authors.forename: Ze
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Wang
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001284:Atrophy; D001921:Brain / Q000473:pathology*; D001931:Brain Mapping / Q000379:methods*; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D018450:Disease Progression; D019277:Entropy; D056344:Executive Function; D005221:Fatigue / Q000209:etiology / Q000503:physiopathology; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008568:Memory; D008875:Middle Aged; D009043:Motor Activity; D020529:Multiple Sclerosis, Relapsing-Remitting / Q000150:complications / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology*; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D013037:Spatial Behavior; D055815:Young Adult