Guo Jun, Zhang Hongchuan, Liu Jingchun, Wang Caihong, Cao Chen, Cheng Jingliang, Yu Chunshui, Qin Wen
Department of Radiology, Tianjin Huanhu Hospital and Tianjin University HuanHu Hospital, Tianjin, China.
Department of Radiology, Tianjin Key Lab of Functional Imaging and Tianjin Institute of Radiology, Tianjin Medical University General Hospital, Tianjin, China.
Front Neurosci. 2024 Oct 15;18:1451307. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2024.1451307. eCollection 2024.
Through its extensive connection with the cortex, the thalamus constitutes the hub of cortico-subcortical circuits and participants in multi-dimensional functions. However, the differential involvements of thalamic functional connectivity in chronic capsular and pontine stroke are still unknown.
The research recruited 66 left-lesion chronic stroke patients, including 46 capsular strokes (CS) and 20 pontine stroke (PS) patients, and 67 normal controls (NC). The thalamic subfields functional connectivities were compared between groups using a two-way repeated analysis of variance (ANOVA), corrected for confounders including age, gender, education and scanners. Spearman partial correlation was used to explore the potential association between altered thalamic FC and clinical variables.
The ipsilesional thalamus of CS patients had abnormally decreased FC with widespread cognitive-related areas while increased FC with visual- and somatic-motor areas. In contrast, the ipsilesional thalamus of PS patients mainly demonstrated increased FC in these sensorimotor areas. Even in the contralesional thalamus, we observed similar (with the ipsilesional) but less extensive functional dysconnectivity patterns in both the CS and PS patients ( < 0.05, corrected using family-wise error [FWE] at the voxel level). Finally, we found significant group x subfields interactions on thalamic functional connectivity, where capsular vs. pontine stroke demonstrate varied functional dysconnectivity with specific thalamic subfields. Finally, a weak correlation was found between FC of both ipsilesional/contralesional thalamic subfields and motor, working and verbal memory.
The thalamic functional dysconnectivity after chronic stroke are lesion-location and subfields dependent. Moreover, functional dysconnectivity were shown in both the ipsilesional and contralesional thalamus with similar patterns.
丘脑通过与皮质的广泛连接，构成了皮质-皮质下回路的枢纽，并参与多种功能。然而，丘脑功能连接在慢性脑桥被盖部和脑桥卒中中的差异仍不清楚。
本研究招募了66例左侧病变的慢性卒中患者，包括46例脑桥被盖部卒中（CS）患者和20例脑桥卒中（PS）患者，以及67名正常对照（NC）。使用双向重复方差分析（ANOVA）比较各组间丘脑亚区的功能连接，并对年龄、性别、教育程度和扫描仪等混杂因素进行校正。采用Spearman偏相关分析探讨丘脑功能连接改变与临床变量之间的潜在关联。
CS患者患侧丘脑与广泛的认知相关区域的功能连接异常降低，而与视觉和躯体运动区域的功能连接增加。相比之下，PS患者患侧丘脑主要在这些感觉运动区域表现出功能连接增加。即使在对侧丘脑中，我们在CS和PS患者中也观察到类似的（与患侧）但范围较小的功能连接障碍模式（<0.05，在体素水平使用族系误差[FWE]校正）。最后，我们发现丘脑功能连接存在显著的组×亚区相互作用，其中脑桥被盖部与脑桥卒中表现出与特定丘脑亚区不同的功能连接障碍。最后，发现患侧/对侧丘脑亚区的功能连接与运动、工作和言语记忆之间存在弱相关性。
慢性卒中后丘脑功能连接障碍与病变部位和亚区有关。此外，患侧和对侧丘脑均出现了类似模式的功能连接障碍。
