Li Qiu-Gen, Zhou Fu-Qing, Huang Xin, Zhou Xiong, Liu Chao, Zhang Ting, Li Huan-Yu, Wu Xiao-Rong, Wang Jun
Second Department of Respiratory Disease, Jiangxi Provincial People's Hospital, Nanchang.
Department of Radiology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University, Jiangxi Province Medical Imaging Research Institute, Nanchang, Jiangxi, People's Republic of China.
Neuroreport. 2018 Sep 26;29(14):1151-1156. doi: 10.1097/WNR.0000000000001087.
Several previous studies have reported that asthma patients have abnormal brain activities, whereas alterations in the resting-state network still remain unknown. The aim of this study was to investigate the changes in functional network centrality in asthma patients using voxel-wise degree centrality (DC) method. Asthma patients and healthy controls (HCs) were matched closely in age, sex, and education of participants. The DC method was used to evaluate the functional network centrality. The receiver operating characteristic curve was used to distinguish the asthma group from the HCs group. The Pearson correlation coefficient was used to explore the relationship between the observed mean values of DC in different brain areas and the behavioral performance. Compared with HCs, DC values were significantly decreased in the right middle temporal gyrus and the right putamen of asthma patients. In contrast, in asthma patients, DC values were markedly increased in the right posterior lobe of the cerebellum, right inferior temporal gyrus, left superior frontal gyrus, left postcentral gyrus and inferior parietal lobule, left middle frontal gyrus, and left postcentral gyrus. However, there was no relationship between the observed mean DC values in different brain areas and the behavioral performance. The results showed that the DC values were altered in various brain regions of asthma patients, which were related to default mode network, the cortex-basal ganglia network, the frontoparietal network, and the sensorimotor network, leading to some useful information for clinical studies in asthma patients.
此前的多项研究报告称，哮喘患者存在大脑活动异常，而静息态网络的改变仍不清楚。本研究的目的是使用体素级度中心性（DC）方法研究哮喘患者功能网络中心性的变化。哮喘患者和健康对照（HCs）在参与者的年龄、性别和教育程度方面进行了密切匹配。使用DC方法评估功能网络中心性。采用受试者工作特征曲线将哮喘组与HCs组区分开来。使用Pearson相关系数探索不同脑区DC观测平均值与行为表现之间的关系。与HCs相比，哮喘患者右侧颞中回和右侧壳核的DC值显著降低。相反，在哮喘患者中，小脑右后叶、右侧颞下回、左侧额上回、左侧中央后回和顶下小叶、左侧额中回和左侧中央后回的DC值明显升高。然而，不同脑区观测到的平均DC值与行为表现之间没有关系。结果表明，哮喘患者不同脑区的DC值发生了改变，这些改变与默认模式网络、皮质-基底神经节网络、额顶网络和感觉运动网络有关，为哮喘患者的临床研究提供了一些有用信息。
