Coloigner Julie, Kim Yeun, Bush Adam, Choi Soyoung, Balderrama Melissa C, Coates Thomas D, O'Neil Sharon H, Lepore Natasha, Wood John C
CIBORG laboratory, Division of Radiology, Children's Hospital, Los Angeles, California, United States of America.
Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2017 Oct 5;12(10):e0184860. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0184860. eCollection 2017.
Sickle cell disease (SCD) is a chronic blood disorder that is often associated with acute and chronic cerebrovascular complications, including strokes and impaired cognition. Using functional resting state magnetic resonance images, we performed whole-brain analysis of the amplitude of low frequency fluctuations (ALFF), to detect areas of spontaneous blood oxygenation level dependent signal across brain regions. We compared the ALFF of 20 SCD patients to that observed in 19 healthy, age and ethnicity-matched, control subjects. Significant differences were found in several brain regions, including the insula, precuneus, anterior cingulate cortex and medial superior frontal gyrus. To identify the ALFF differences resulting from anemia alone, we also compared the ALFF of SCD patients to that observed in 12 patients having comparable hemoglobin levels but lacking sickle hemoglobin. Increased ALFF in the orbitofrontal cortex and the anterior and posterior cingulate cortex and decreased ALFF in the frontal pole, cerebellum and medial superior frontal gyrus persisted after accounting for the effect of anemia. The presence of white matter hyperintensities was associated with depressed frontal and medial superior frontal gyri activity in the SCD subjects. Decreased ALFF in the frontal lobe was correlated with decreased verbal fluency and cognitive flexibility. These findings may lead to a better understanding of the pathophysiology of SCD.
镰状细胞病（SCD）是一种慢性血液疾病，常伴有急性和慢性脑血管并发症，包括中风和认知障碍。我们使用功能静息态磁共振成像，对低频波动幅度（ALFF）进行全脑分析，以检测全脑区域依赖血氧水平的自发信号区域。我们将20例SCD患者的ALFF与19例年龄、种族匹配的健康对照者的ALFF进行比较。在几个脑区发现了显著差异，包括脑岛、楔前叶、前扣带回皮质和额上回中部。为了确定仅由贫血导致的ALFF差异，我们还将SCD患者的ALFF与12例血红蛋白水平相当但缺乏镰状血红蛋白的患者的ALFF进行比较。在考虑贫血影响后，眶额皮质、前扣带回皮质和后扣带回皮质的ALFF增加以及额极、小脑和额上回中部的ALFF降低仍然存在。白质高信号的存在与SCD患者额叶和额上回中部活动降低有关。额叶ALFF降低与语言流畅性和认知灵活性降低相关。这些发现可能有助于更好地理解SCD的病理生理学。
