Department of Neurology, VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
PLoS One. 2013 Jul 31;8(7):e69318. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0069318. Print 2013.
The relation between pathological findings and clinical and cognitive decline in Multiple Sclerosis remains unclear. Here, we tested the hypothesis that altered functional connectivity could provide a missing link between structural findings, such as thalamic atrophy and white matter lesion load, and clinical and cognitive dysfunction. Resting-state magnetoencephalography recordings from 21 MS patients and 17 gender- and age matched controls were projected onto atlas-based regions-of-interest using beamforming. Average functional connectivity was computed for each ROI and literature-based resting-state networks using the phase-lag index. Structural measures of whole brain and thalamic atrophy and lesion load were estimated from MRI scans. Global analyses showed lower functional connectivity in the alpha2 band and higher functional connectivity in the beta band in patients with Multiple Sclerosis. Additionally, alpha2 band functional connectivity was lower for the patients in two resting-state networks, namely the default mode network and the visual network. Higher beta band functional connectivity was found in the default mode network and in the temporo-parietal network. Lower alpha2 band functional connectivity in the visual network was related to lower thalamic volumes. Beta band functional connectivity correlated positively with disability scores, most prominently in the default mode network, and correlated negatively with cognitive performance in this network. These findings illustrate the relationship between thalamic atrophy, altered functional connectivity and clinical and cognitive dysfunction in MS, which could serve as a bridge to understand how neurodegeneration is associated with altered functional connectivity and subsequently clinical and cognitive decline.
多发性硬化症的病理发现与临床和认知衰退之间的关系仍不清楚。在这里，我们检验了一个假设，即功能连接的改变可以提供一个缺失的环节，将结构发现（如丘脑萎缩和白质病变负荷）与临床和认知功能障碍联系起来。对 21 名 MS 患者和 17 名性别和年龄匹配的对照者的静息状态脑磁图记录进行了基于图谱的感兴趣区投射，使用波束形成。为每个 ROI 和基于文献的静息状态网络计算了平均功能连接，并使用相位滞后指数进行了计算。从 MRI 扫描中估计了整个大脑和丘脑萎缩和病变负荷的结构测量值。全局分析显示多发性硬化症患者的 alpha2 波段功能连接降低，beta 波段功能连接升高。此外，alpha2 波段功能连接在两个静息状态网络（默认模式网络和视觉网络）中的患者中较低。默认模式网络和颞顶叶网络中的 beta 波段功能连接较高。视觉网络中的 alpha2 波段功能连接较低与较低的丘脑体积有关。beta 波段功能连接与残疾评分呈正相关，在默认模式网络中最为明显，与该网络中的认知表现呈负相关。这些发现说明了多发性硬化症中丘脑萎缩、功能连接改变与临床和认知功能障碍之间的关系，这可以作为一个桥梁，以了解神经退行性变与功能连接改变以及随后的临床和认知衰退是如何相关的。
