Department of Basic Science, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan; Division of Neurology, Department of Internal Medicine, Showa University Northern Yokohama Hospital, Yokohama, Japan.
Department of Neurosurgery, Tokyo Women's Medical University, Tokyo, Japan.
Cortex. 2023 Oct;167:283-302. doi: 10.1016/j.cortex.2023.07.005. Epub 2023 Jul 24.
Glioma in the left frontal cortex has been reported to cause agrammatic comprehension and induce global functional connectivity alterations within the syntax-related networks. However, it remains unclear to what extent the structural reorganization is affected by preexisting syntax-related networks. We examined 28 patients with a diffuse glioma in the left hemisphere and 23 healthy participants. Syntactic abilities were assessed by a picture-sentence matching task with various sentence types. The lesion responsible for agrammatic comprehension was identified by region-of-interest-based lesion-symptom mapping (RLSM). Cortical structural alterations were examined by surface-based morphometry (SBM), in which the cortical thickness and fractal dimension were measured with three-dimensional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Fiber tracking on the human population-averaged diffusion MRI template was performed to examine whether the cortical structural alterations were associated with the syntax-related networks. The RLSM revealed associations between agrammatic comprehension and a glioma in the posterior limb of the left internal capsule. The SBM demonstrated that decreased cortical thickness and/or increased complexity of the right posterior insula were associated not only with agrammatic comprehension of the patients but also with the syntactic abilities of healthy participants. The fiber tracking revealed that the route between these two regions was anatomically integrated into the preexisting syntax-related networks previously identified. These results suggest a potential association between agrammatic comprehension in patients with diffuse glioma and structural variations in specific tracts and cortical regions, which may be closely related to the syntax-related networks.
左侧额皮质的神经胶质瘤已被报道可导致语法理解障碍，并在与语法相关的网络中引起全局功能连接改变。然而，目前尚不清楚结构重组在多大程度上受到与语法相关的预先存在的网络的影响。我们检查了 28 名左侧半球弥漫性神经胶质瘤患者和 23 名健康参与者。语法能力通过使用各种句型的图片-句子匹配任务进行评估。通过基于感兴趣区域的病变-症状映射（RLSM）确定导致语法理解障碍的病变。通过基于表面的形态测量学（SBM）检查皮质结构改变，使用三维磁共振成像（MRI）测量皮质厚度和分形维数。在人类群体平均扩散 MRI 模板上进行纤维追踪，以检查皮质结构改变是否与语法相关网络有关。RLSM 显示语法理解障碍与左侧内囊后肢的神经胶质瘤之间存在关联。SBM 表明，右侧后岛叶的皮质厚度降低和/或复杂度增加不仅与患者的语法理解障碍有关，而且与健康参与者的语法能力有关。纤维追踪显示，这两个区域之间的路径在解剖上被整合到先前确定的与语法相关的网络中。这些结果表明弥漫性神经胶质瘤患者的语法理解障碍与特定束和皮质区域的结构变化之间存在潜在关联，这可能与语法相关网络密切相关。
