Department of Neurology, Buffalo Neuroimaging Analysis Center, Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, Buffalo, NY, USA/National Center for Magnetic Resonance in Wuhan, State Key Laboratory of Magnetic Resonance and Atomic and Molecular Physics, Wuhan Institute of Physics and Mathematics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, China.
Department of Neurology, Buffalo Neuroimaging Analysis Center, Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, Buffalo, NY, USA/MRI Clinical and Translational Research Center, Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, Buffalo, NY, USA.
Mult Scler. 2019 Aug;25(9):1243-1254. doi: 10.1177/1352458518788218. Epub 2018 Jul 13.
The thalamus, affected early in multiple sclerosis (MS), is a heterogeneous composition of functionally distinct nuclei and is associated with fatigue, cognition, and other outcomes. However, most previous functional imaging studies considered the thalamus only as a whole.
To investigate MS-related abnormalities in nuclei-specific thalamic functional connectivity (FC) and their associations with fatigue and cognitive outcomes.
Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was analyzed in 64 MS patients and 26 healthy controls (HC). Whole-brain FC maps for four thalamic subregions seeds were computed for each subject. FC maps were compared between groups, and group by FC interaction effects were assessed for fatigue and cognitive measures.
MS patients had decreased FC between the left medial thalamic nuclei and left angular gyrus and reduced FC between the left posterior thalamic nuclei and left supramarginal gyrus, as well as decreased right medial thalamic nuclei connectivity with bilateral caudate/thalamus and left cerebellar areas ( < 0.05 corrected). MS patients had increased FC between the left anterior thalamic nuclei and anterior cingulate cortex bilaterally. There were significant relationships between connectivity alterations and fatigue and cognitive measures between groups ( < 0.05 corrected).
FC alteration is nuclei-specific and is differentially associated with fatigue and cognition.
丘脑在多发性硬化症（MS）早期就受到影响，它由功能不同的核团组成，与疲劳、认知等结果有关。然而，大多数先前的功能影像学研究仅将丘脑作为一个整体进行考虑。
探讨核特异性丘脑功能连接（FC）与疲劳和认知结果的相关性。
对 64 例 MS 患者和 26 名健康对照者（HC）进行静息态功能磁共振成像（fMRI）分析。为每个受试者计算了四个丘脑亚区种子的全脑 FC 图。比较了组间 FC 图，并评估了疲劳和认知测量的组间 FC 交互效应。
MS 患者左侧丘脑内侧核与左侧角回之间的 FC 降低，左侧丘脑后核与左侧缘上回之间的 FC 降低，以及右侧丘脑内侧核与双侧尾状核/丘脑和左侧小脑区域的连接减少（<0.05 校正）。MS 患者双侧丘脑前核与前扣带回皮质之间的 FC 增加。组间存在与疲劳和认知测量相关的连接改变（<0.05 校正）。
FC 的改变是核特异性的，与疲劳和认知有不同的相关性。
