Xiaohan Song¹ and Lijun Wang^1
1The First Affiliated Hospital of Dalian Medical University, Dalian, China

Keywords: Head & Neck/ENT, fMRI (resting state)

Radiotherapy is the primary treatment modality for patients with Nasopharyngeal carcinoma. However, radiotherapy in the treatment of nasopharyngeal carcinoma will also cause neurocognitive impairment. Previous studies mostly focused on the changes of brain structure in patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma caused by radiotherapy, but it was reported that there were changes in brain network connectivity before the brain structure was abnormal. So, the purpose of thestudy was to investigate network-level functional connectivity alternations late stage post radiation therapy in Nasopharyngeal carcinoma patients using independent component analysis of rs-fMRI.

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John O Glass¹, Jia Liang², Ruitian Song¹, Yimei Li², Giles W Robinson³, Amar Gajjar³, Thomas E Merchant⁴, and Wilburn E Reddick^1
1Diagnostic Imaging, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, TN, United States, ²Biostatistics, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, TN, United States, ³Oncology, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, TN, United States, ⁴Radiation Oncology, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, TN, United States

Keywords: Brain Connectivity, Cancer

This study reports on the effects of pediatric medulloblastoma therapy in a population of 68 subjects. Structural connectivity was evaluated after surgery and again at the end of both radiation and chemotherapy. Linear models were written for the difference between these two time points controlling for age and risk arm. Fourteen significant edges were found connecting the basal ganglia to the dorsolateral prefrontal and prefrontal cortices as well as the cingulate. These regions are part of the executive function network and may point to the mechanisms of decreases in neurocognitive performance.

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Gerhard Drenthen¹, Amir Far², Catharina Faber², Jaymin Upadhyay³, David Linden⁴, Raquel van Gool⁴, Walter Backes¹, Janneke Hoeijmakers², and Jacobus Jansen^1
1Department of Radiology & Nuclear Medicine, School for Mental Health and Neuroscience, Maastricht University Medical Center, Maastricht, Netherlands, ²Department of Neurology, Maastricht University Medical Center, Maastricht, Netherlands, ³Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, MA, United States, ⁴School for Mental Health & Neuroscience, Maastricht University Medical Center, Maastricht, Netherlands

Keywords: Brain Connectivity, fMRI (task based), Chornic pain

Small fiber neuropathy (SFN) is a neuropathic disorder that is associated with chronic pain, which may have an effect on the functional organization of the brain network. Here, we study the effect of pain on the functional network by applying a painful stimulus block-design during an fMRI acquisition. We show global changes in the functional network for patient with idiopathic and genetic SFN compared to controls. Moreover, self-reported pain scores correlated with nodal importance of the somatosensory cortex (postcentral gyrus) in the pain-evoked cerebral functional network, indicating that the functional network takes an important role in the perception of pain.

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Prasanna Karunanayaka¹, Sara L Mills-Huffnagle¹, Corinne M. Augusto¹, Aimee Cauffman¹, Joshua Hazelton¹, Sangam Kanekar¹, Andréa Hobkirk¹, and Jennifer E Nyland^1
1Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine, Hershey, PA, United States

Keywords: Brain Connectivity, Neuro, Pain

Persistent and chronic pain following acute musculoskeletal injury is a significant contributor to diminished quality of life. We correlated self-reported pain using the McGill Pain Questionnaire with resting-state brain network connectivity in patients with blunt chest trauma. Results suggest that both inferior parietal and insular cortex connectivity were positively correlated to greater self-reported pain and a region within the salient network showed a negative correlation. These results support the hypothesis that aberrant functioning of brain circuits that assign salience values to stimuli may contribute to pain perception. Understanding abnormal activity/connectivity may identify targets to prevent persistent and chronic pain.

Xiaozheng Liu¹, Jinming Chen², Keyang Chen¹, Kun Liu¹, Xi Zhang³, Lipeng Dong², han lu⁴, Yan Li¹, Zhihong Wang⁵, and Yungang Cao^1
1The Second Affiliated Hospital and Yuying Children’s Hospital, Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, China, ²The Hebei General Hospital, Shijiazhuang, China, ³Xingtai people's Hospital, Xingtai, China, ⁴Philips Healthcare, Shanghai, China, Shanghai, China, ⁵The Second Affiliated hospital, Hebei Medical University, Shijiazhuang, China

Keywords: Brain Connectivity, Nervous system, migraine

Blood flow to the brainstem region is increased as a hypothesis for migraine. Locus coeruleus (LC) is the main noradrenergic nucleus in the brainstem. However, the functional characteristics of LC in migraine without aura (MwoA) patients are not currently known. Our results demonstrated that patients with MwoA exhibited significant LC FC differences in the brain areas associated with visual and cognitive function. Understanding the changes in the LC brain network in MwoA patients can provide us with new ideas to understand the pathological mechanisms of MwoA.

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Paola Valsasina¹, Olga Marchesi¹, Carmen Vizzino¹, Damiano Mistri¹, Maria Assunta Rocca^1,2,3, and Massimo Filippi^1,2,3,4,5
1Neuroimaging Research Unit, Division of Neuroscience, IRCCS San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Milan, Italy, ²Neurology Unit, IRCCS San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Milan, Italy, ³Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, Milan, Italy, ⁴Neurorehabilitation Unit, IRCCS San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Milan, Italy, ⁵Neurophysiology Service, IRCCS San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Milan, Italy

Keywords: Brain Connectivity, Multiple Sclerosis

In this study, we explored hippocampal static and time-varying functional connectivity and its association with cognition in patients with multiple sclerosis. We found decreased static and time-varying connectivity of the hippocampus with temporo-parietal regions, and increased connectivity of the hippocampus with pre- and postcentral gyri, inferior temporal gyrus, precuneus and frontal regions. Better visuospatial and verbal memory were associated with higher hippocampal time-varying connectivity with precentral and inferior temporal gyri, while better attention scores were associated with higher hippocampal time-varying connectivity with the superior frontal cortex.

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Karthik R Sreenivasan¹, Ece Bayram², Xiaowei Zhuang¹, Jason Longhurst³, Zhengshi Yang¹, Dietmar Cordes¹, Aaron Ritter⁴, Jessica Caldwell¹, Jeffrey L Cummings⁵, Zoltan Mari¹, Irene Litvan², Natividad Stover⁶, Talene Yacoubian⁶, Brent Bluett⁷, and Virendra Mishra^1,8
1Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health, Las Vegas, NV, United States, ²Department of Neurosciences, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, United States, ³Department of Physical Therapy and Athletic Training, Saint Louis University, St. Louis, MO, United States, ⁴Memory & Cognitive Disorders Program Hoag, Pickup Family Neurosciences Institute, Newport Beach, CA, United States, ⁵Chambers-Grundy Center for Transformative Neuroscience, Department of Brain Health, School of Integrated Health Sciences, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, NV, United States, ⁶Department of Neurology, The University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, United States, ⁷Central California Movement Disorders, Pismo Beach, CA, United States, ⁸Department of Radiology, The University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, United States

Keywords: Brain Connectivity, Parkinson's Disease

Neuroimaging studies, including resting-state functional MRI (rs-fMRI), have implicated altered resting-state functional connectivity (rs-FC) in PD patients with freezing of gait (PD-FOG) and showed that the disruption of connectivity between the resting state networks (RSNs) was correlated with FOG. However, the network organization in PD-FOG remains poorly understood. In this study, we use rs-fMRI data and graph theoretical approaches to explore the reorganization of functional networks in PD-FOG. The results of our study suggest that there is a substantial reorganization of regional brain hubs and disruption in the higher-order functional network topology in PD-FOG participants compared to PD-nFOG.

Jiahui Zheng¹, Weiqiang Dou², Xiangxiang Wu¹, and Haifeng Shi^1
1Department of Radiology, The Affiliated Changzhou NO.2 People’s Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, changzhou, China, ²GE Healthcare, MR Research China, Beijing, China

Keywords: Brain Connectivity, Brain, DKI FC

    The goal of this study was to investigate the relationships of altered brain micro-structure and function, and cognitive function for ESRD patients undergoing maintenance hemodialysis. Specifically, diffusion kurtosis imaging (DKI), the resting-state functional connectivity (FC) algorithm, and the least squares support vector regression machine (LSSVRM) were utilized to conduct our study. Brain micro-structural and functional changes were found in ESRD patients, which may account for the onset of cognitive impairment in affected patients. These quantitative parameters combined with our optimized prediction model may be helpful to establish reliable imaging markers to detect and monitor cognitive impairment associated with ESRD.

Ying Yu¹, Bo Hu¹, Wen Wang¹, Lin-Feng Yan¹, and Guang-Bin Cui^1
1Department of Radiology & Functional and Molecular Imaging Key Lab of Shaanxi Province, Tangdu Hospital, Fourth Military Medical University (Air Force Medical University), Xi’an, China

Keywords: Brain Connectivity, Diabetes

To screen type 2 diabetes mellitus(T2DM)-specific effective connective (EC) network, the dynamic features of which may contribute to distinguishing T2DM patients with mild cognitive impairment (T2DM-MCI) from controls. Screening of resting-state functional MRI (rs-fMRI) data from early T2DM, T2DM-related static causality network mainly consisted of nodes in visual and sensorimotor network. In the visual-motor network, the fractional windows and mean dwell time of strong dEC state in T2DM-MCI patients were significantly higher than controls. The sum of dECs (sumdEC) could effective distinguish the mT2DM-MCI indicating sumdEC to be a promising biomarker for the early cognitive impairment in T2DM.

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Wei Du¹, Yangyingqiu Liu¹, Man Wang¹, Wanyao Li¹, Bingbing Gao¹, Weiwei Wang¹, Qingwei Song¹, and Yanwei Miao^1
1Department of Radiology, the First Affiliated Hospital of Dalian Medical University, Dalian, China

Keywords: Brain Connectivity, Diabetes, regional homogeneity

To further investigate the changes in brain function of type 2 diabetes we prospectively enrolled 38 patients clinically diagnosed with T2DM and 24 age-matched healthy controls and underwent blood oxygen level-dependent fMRI scans. The image data was processed to obtain regional homogeneity values and compared by two sample t test. Results found that the local synchronization of spontaneous neural activity of the supramarginal gyrus in patients with T2DM was abnormal and correlated with cognitive function, which may be involved in the pathophysiological mechanism of T2DM. 

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xu kun¹, wang jun², and zhang jing^3
1medical, lanzhou unversity, lanzhou, China, ²lanzhou university, lanzhou, China, ³lanzhou university second hospital, lanzhou, China

Keywords: Brain Connectivity, Brain Connectivity

Type 2 diabetes (T2DM) as one of the risk factors for developing Alzheimer's, however, the underlying pathogenesis of cognitive impairment in patients with T2DM was still unknown. our study combined the method of sliding-window approach and Granger causality analysis and found decreased dynamic effective connectivity (DEC) in T2DM compared with healthy people, and the decrease was associated with abnormal blood glucose level.

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Yang Huang¹, Dongsheng Zhang¹, Xin Zhang¹, Kai Ai², Xiaoyan Lei¹, and Xiaoling Zhang^1
1Shaanxi Provincial People’s Hospital, Xi’an, China, ²Philips Healthcare, Xi’an, China

Keywords: Brain Connectivity, fMRI (resting state)

To investigate the functional abnormalities of brain networks and hub nodes damaged in T2DM patients with mild cognitive impairment (DMCI). We applied degree centrality (DC) and seed-based functional connectivity (FC) analysis to identify the abnormal hub nodes and the FC patterns of these hubs in DMCI patients. Our results indicated that DMCI patients showed extensive alterations in the visual and memory pathways, and these alterations were correlated with clinical/cognitive variables. These results suggested that vision and memory-related brain regions dysfunctions may be involved in the neuropathology of visuospatial and memory function impairment in DMCI patients.

Jiahui Zheng¹, Jiankun Dai², Xiangxiang Wu¹, and Haifeng Shi^1
1Department of Radiology, The Affiliated Changzhou NO.2 People’s Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, changzhou, China, ²GE Healthcare, MR Research China, Beijing, China

Keywords: Brain Connectivity, fMRI (resting state)

This study aimed to characterize the topological properties of gray matter (GM) and functional networks in end-stage renal disease (ESRD) patients undergoing maintenance hemodialysis to provide insights into the underlying mechanisms of cognitive impairment. Functional and GM networks were constructed based on resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) and diffusion kurtosis imaging (DKI), respectively. Disrupted topological organizations were observed, as indicated by significantly altered global measures, nodal efficiency, and degree centrality, which may account for the progression of cognitive dysfunction. And implementation of prediction models based on neuroimaging metrics may provide more objective information to promote early diagnosis and intervention.

Xue Zhang¹, Wanjun Hu¹, and Jing Zhang^1
1Department of Magnetic Resonance, Lanzhou University Second Hospital, LanZhou, China

Keywords: Brain Connectivity, Diabetes, Neuroimaging, type 2 diabetes mellitus, VBM, resting-state fMRI, Cognition

Keyword: Neuroimaging, type 2 diabetes mellitus, VBM, resting-state fMRI, Cognition

The main purpose of this study was to evaluate the structural brain alterations and related functional abnormity of type 2 diabetes(T2DM), and its correlation with cognitive scale. Changes in brain volume were assessed using voxel-based morphology (VBM), while VBM Results were used to build ROI to analyse related functional connectivity (FC) changes in brain function. The result indicated that decreased gray matter volume and decreased functional connectivity may represent the neurobiological mechanism underlying cognitive dysfunction in patients with T2DM.

Dongsheng Zhang¹, Shasha Liu¹, Yang Huang¹, Weirui Liu¹, Wanting Liu¹, Kai Ai², Xiaoyan Lei¹, and Xiaoling Zhang^1
1Shaanxi Provincial People’s Hospital, Xi’an, China, ²Philips Healthcare, Xi’an, China

Keywords: Brain Connectivity, fMRI, T2DM

To investigate the underlying neural mechanism of T2DM-related brain damage, the functional connectivity density (FCD) mapping method was used to examine the density distribution of whole-brain resting functional connectivity from 77 patients with T2DM under different cognitive states (with normal cognitive function, DMCN and mild cognitive impairment, DMCI) and 40 healthy controls (HCs). The decreased long-range FCD in the left superior temporal gyrus (STG) in DMCI patients and its correlation with Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test (RAVLT) score in all T2DM patients, which suggested left STG may be involved in the neuropathology of auditory memory in T2DM patients.

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Ge Zhang¹, Xianchang Zhang², and Meiyun Wang^1
1Radiology, Henan Provincial People's Hospital, Zhengzhou, China, ²MR Collaboration, Siemens Healthineers Ltd, Beijing, China

Keywords: Brain Connectivity, fMRI (resting state)

We combined multiple rs-fMRI indices to investigate the abnormal functional changes among T2DM patients. 52 T2DM patients and matched control participants were enrolled in this study. The functional abnormalities primarily involved motor and sensory function areas. More brain regions were revealed by the combination strategy than any single method and the indices of rs-fMRI showed significantly concordant alterations in most abnormal brain regions. Correlations of between clinical parameters and rs-fMRI indices were found. The current study demonstrated an enriched picture showing the brain functional alterations reflected by the combination of multiple indices in T2DM patients. 

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Peipei Chang¹, Peng Sun², and Yanwei Miao^1
1The First Affiliated Hospital of Dalian Medical University, Dalian, China, ²Philips Healthcare, BeiJing, China

Keywords: Stroke, Perfusion, Arterial Spin Labeling

Pontine infarction (PI) is very common in posterior circulation infarction, which can lead to behavioral dysfunctions, such as motor and cognition impairment. However, secondary changes in microstructure after PI in the whole brain remain unclear. This study aimed to explore the changes in cerebral blood flow (CBF) and fractional anisotropy (FA) in PI patients and to better understand the whole brain microstructure changes. We found PI could lead to extensive white matter tracts impairment in most of the whole brain regions and perfusion changes in some brain regions.

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Changjiang Zhao^1,2, Chengxin Yu^1,2, Bo Rao ³, Junlong Pan¹, Li Zhu¹, Jiangjin Chen¹, Long Chen¹, Xiong Xiong ¹, Can Zhang ¹, Yong Ye¹, Zheng Wang ¹, Xiaoling Yang ¹, Lisi Xie ¹, Xiance Zhao⁴, Chen Zhao⁵, and Shan Huang^4
1Yichang Central People's Hospital and The First College of Clinical Medical Science, China Three Gorges University, Yichang, China, ²Institute of Medcical Imaging, China Three Gorges University, Yichang, China, ³Department of Radiology, Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China, ⁴Philips Healthcare, Shanghai, China, ⁵Philips Healthcare, Guangzhou, China

Keywords: Stroke, fMRI (resting state)

The alteration patterns of bi-hemispheric coordination between homologous areas in the whole brain of acute ischemic stroke patients with different infarct sites remains unclear. In the analysis of the voxel-mirrored homotopic connectivity (VMHC) among patients with frontoparietal lesion (G1), radiation coronal lesion (G2) and basal ganglia lesion (G3), VMHC was significantly decreased in G1 compared with G2 and G3. The impaired regions, such as precentral gyrus and postcentral gyrus, were part of the sensorimotor and default mode network. In contrast, VMHC mostly increased in patients with subcortical stroke, which indicates compensation rather than impairment of bi-hemispheric coordination.

Lei Cui¹ and Minming Zang^1
1Radiology, The second affiliated hospital of ZheJiang University, Hangzhou, China

Keywords: Brain Connectivity, fMRI (resting state), redundancy

We applied a dynamic whole-brain network metric, redundancy, to a community-based middle-aged and elderly population, revealed the potential mechanisms of SVD on cognitive impairment ; we also explored the relationship between cognitive reserve and brain redundancy metric.We found that aging, hypertension and lacunes could impair redundancy in brain networks, whereas better brain redundancy corresponds to better executive function, which partly explains the potential mechanism of cognitive impairment by SVD. Secondly, we found no significant correlation between redundancy and cognitive reserve.

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Jyun-Ru Chen¹, Chun-Jen Lin^2,3, I-Hui Lee^2,3,4, and Chia-Feng Lu^1
1Department of Biomedical Imaging and Radiological Sciences, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Taipei, Taiwan, ²School of Medicine, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Taipei, Taiwan, ³Neurological Institute, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan, ⁴Institute of Brain Science, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Taipei, Taiwan

Keywords: Vessels, Ischemia

Previous studies have reported that patients with asymptomatic internal carotid stenosis (aICS) had recall verbal memory impairment. However, the underlying mechanism to elucidate the altered functional connectivity (FC) associated with the anterior and posterior circulation was not proposed. Furthermore, whether the laterality of aICS is a factor in FC alterations and verbal memory impairment requires further investigation. In this study, we reported that the left and right aICS groups showed different patterns of FC changes related to secondary language regions in anterior and posterior circulation. These FCs could be served as imaging biomarkers for recall verbal memory.