Academic Unit of Neurology, Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute, Trinity College Dublin, the University of Dublin, 152-160 Pearse Street, Dublin, Ireland.
Smurfit Institute of Genetics, Trinity College Dublin, the University of Dublin, College Street, Dublin, Ireland.
Cereb Cortex. 2019 Jan 1;29(1):27-41. doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhx301.
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a terminal progressive adult-onset neurodegeneration of the motor system. Although originally considered a pure motor degeneration, there is increasing evidence of disease heterogeneity with varying degrees of extra-motor involvement. How the combined motor and nonmotor degeneration occurs in the context of broader disruption in neural communication across brain networks has not been well characterized. Here, we have performed high-density crossectional and longitudinal resting-state electroencephalography (EEG) recordings on 100 ALS patients and 34 matched controls, and have identified characteristic patterns of altered EEG connectivity that have persisted in longitudinal analyses. These include strongly increased EEG coherence between parietal-frontal scalp regions (in γ-band) and between bilateral regions over motor areas (in θ-band). Correlation with structural MRI from the same patients shows that disease-specific structural degeneration in motor areas and corticospinal tracts parallels a decrease in neural activity over scalp motor areas, while the EEG over the scalp regions associated with less extensively involved extra-motor regions on MRI exhibit significantly increased neural communication. Our findings demonstrate that EEG-based connectivity mapping can provide novel insights into progressive network decline in ALS. These data pave the way for development of validated cost-effective spectral EEG-based biomarkers that parallel changes in structural imaging.
肌萎缩侧索硬化症（ALS）是一种进行性、成人起病的运动系统神经退行性疾病。尽管最初被认为是一种纯粹的运动神经元变性，但越来越多的证据表明，该病存在异质性，不同程度地伴有运动外的累及。在神经网络间广泛通讯中断的背景下，运动和非运动神经元如何共同发生变性尚未得到很好的描述。在这里，我们对 100 名 ALS 患者和 34 名匹配的对照者进行了高密度横断面和纵向静息态脑电图（EEG）记录，并确定了特征性的改变 EEG 连接模式，这些模式在纵向分析中仍然存在。这些模式包括顶-额头皮区域（γ 波段）和双侧运动区域（θ 波段）之间 EEG 相干性的强烈增加。与同一患者的结构性磁共振成像（MRI）的相关性表明，运动区和皮质脊髓束的疾病特异性结构变性与头皮运动区神经活动的减少平行，而与 MRI 上涉及较少的非运动区域相关的头皮区域的 EEG 显示出明显增加的神经通讯。我们的研究结果表明，基于 EEG 的连接性映射可以为 ALS 中的进行性网络衰退提供新的见解。这些数据为开发验证有效的、基于成本效益的、与结构成像变化平行的频谱 EEG 生物标志物铺平了道路。
