title: Occipital cortical gyrification reductions associate with decreased functional connectivity in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
abstract: Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a fatal neurodegenerative disease characterized by progressive muscular weakness and atrophy. Several morphometric studies have been conducted to investigate the gray matter volume or thickness changes in ALS, whereas the cortical folding pattern remains poorly understood. In the present study, we applied a surface-based local gyrification index (LGI) from high resolution MRI data to quantify the cortical folding in matched samples of 25 ALS patients versus 25 healthy controls. Using resting-state fMRI data, we further conducted seed-based functional connectivity analysis to explore the functional correlate of the cortical folding changes. We found that ALS patients had significantly reduced LGI in right occipital cortex and that abnormality in this region associated with decreased functional connectivity in the bilateral precuneus. This set of findings was speculated to result from disturbed white matter connectivity in ALS. In the patient group, we revealed significant negative correlations between disease duration and the LGIs of a cluster in the left superior frontal gyrus, which may reflect the cognitive deterioration in ALS. In summary, our results suggest that LGI may provide a useful means to assess ALS-related neurodegeneration and to study the pathophysiology of ALS.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory for NeuroInformation of Ministry of Education, School of Life Science and Technology, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, 610054, China.
authors.forename: Yuanchao
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory for NeuroInformation of Ministry of Education, School of Life Science and Technology, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, 610054, China.
authors.forename: Tao
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Fang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory for NeuroInformation of Ministry of Education, School of Life Science and Technology, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, 610054, China.
authors.forename: Yue
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory for NeuroInformation of Ministry of Education, School of Life Science and Technology, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, 610054, China.
authors.forename: Xin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Guo
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory for NeuroInformation of Ministry of Education, School of Life Science and Technology, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, 610054, China.
authors.forename: Abdulqawi
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Alarefi
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, Southwest Hospital, Third Military Medical University, Chongqing, 400038, China.
authors.forename: Jian
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory for NeuroInformation of Ministry of Education, School of Life Science and Technology, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, 610054, China. jiangtz@nlpr.ia.ac.cn.|National Laboratory of Pattern Recognition, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, China. jiangtz@nlpr.ia.ac.cn.
authors.forename: Tianzi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, Southwest Hospital, Third Military Medical University, Chongqing, 400038, China. zhangjq_radiol@foxmail.com.
authors.forename: Jiuquan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhang
mesh_terms: D000690:Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009434:Neural Pathways / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000503:physiopathology; D009778:Occipital Lobe / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000503:physiopathology*; D012146:Rest
keywords: Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis; Cortical folding; Functional connectivity; Local gyrification index; White matter connectivity