Neurology Department, Haeundae Paik Hospital, Inje University College of Medicine, Haeundae-ro 875, Haeundae-gu, 48108, Busan, Korea.
Radiology Department, Haeundae Paik Hospital, Inje University College of Medicine, Busan, Korea.
BMC Neurol. 2021 Aug 27;21(1):330. doi: 10.1186/s12883-021-02358-7.
The aim of this study was to investigate alterations in structural connectivity and structural co-variance network in patients with focal cortical dysplasia (FCD).
We enrolled 37 patients with FCD and 35 healthy controls. All subjects underwent brain MRI with the same scanner and with the same protocol, which included diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and T1-weighted imaging. We analyzed the structural connectivity based on DTI, and structural co-variance network based on the structural volume with T1-weighted imaging. We created a connectivity matrix and obtained network measures from the matrix using the graph theory. We tested the difference in network measure between patients with FCD and healthy controls.
In the structural connectivity analysis, we found that the local efficiency in patients with FCD was significantly lower than in healthy controls (2.390 vs. 2.578, p = 0.031). Structural co-variance network analysis revealed that the mean clustering coefficient, global efficiency, local efficiency, and transitivity were significantly decreased in patients with FCD compared to those in healthy controls (0.527 vs. 0.635, p = 0.036; 0.545 vs. 0.648, p = 0.026; 2.699 vs. 3.801, p = 0.019; 0.791 vs. 0.954, p = 0.026, respectively).
We demonstrate that there are significant alterations in structural connectivity, based on DTI, and structural co-variance network, based on the structural volume, in patients with FCD compared to healthy controls. These findings suggest that focal lesions with FCD could affect the whole-brain network and that FCD is a network disease.
本研究旨在探讨局灶性皮质发育不良（FCD）患者结构连接和结构协方差网络的改变。
我们纳入了 37 名 FCD 患者和 35 名健康对照者。所有受试者均接受了相同扫描仪和相同方案的脑部 MRI 检查，包括弥散张量成像（DTI）和 T1 加权成像。我们基于 DTI 分析结构连接，基于 T1 加权成像的结构体积分析结构协方差网络。我们创建了一个连接矩阵，并使用图论从矩阵中获得网络度量。我们测试了 FCD 患者和健康对照组之间网络度量的差异。
在结构连接分析中，我们发现 FCD 患者的局部效率明显低于健康对照组（2.390 比 2.578，p=0.031）。结构协方差网络分析显示，与健康对照组相比，FCD 患者的平均聚类系数、全局效率、局部效率和传递性显著降低（0.527 比 0.635，p=0.036；0.545 比 0.648，p=0.026；2.699 比 3.801，p=0.019；0.791 比 0.954，p=0.026）。
与健康对照组相比，我们发现 FCD 患者在基于 DTI 的结构连接和基于结构体积的结构协方差网络方面存在显著改变。这些发现表明，FCD 的局灶性病变可能会影响整个大脑网络，FCD 是一种网络疾病。
