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1.
Hum Brain Mapp ; 42(11): 3500-3516, 2021 08 01.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-33949732

RESUMO

Functional connectivity, as estimated using resting state functional MRI, has shown potential in bridging the gap between pathophysiology and cognition. However, clinical use of functional connectivity biomarkers is impeded by unreliable estimates of individual functional connectomes and lack of generalizability of models predicting cognitive outcomes from connectivity. To address these issues, we combine the frameworks of connectome predictive modeling and differential identifiability. Using the combined framework, we show that enhancing the individual fingerprint of resting state functional connectomes leads to robust identification of functional networks associated to cognitive outcomes and also improves prediction of cognitive outcomes from functional connectomes. Using a comprehensive spectrum of cognitive outcomes associated to Alzheimer's disease (AD), we identify and characterize functional networks associated to specific cognitive deficits exhibited in AD. This combined framework is an important step in making individual level predictions of cognition from resting state functional connectomes and in understanding the relationship between cognition and connectivity.


Assuntos
Doença de Alzheimer/diagnóstico por imagem , Disfunção Cognitiva/diagnóstico por imagem , Conectoma/métodos , Rede Nervosa/diagnóstico por imagem , Idoso , Idoso de 80 Anos ou mais , Doença de Alzheimer/fisiopatologia , Disfunção Cognitiva/fisiopatologia , Feminino , Humanos , Imageamento por Ressonância Magnética , Masculino , Rede Nervosa/fisiopatologia
2.
Can J Stat ; 49(1): 203-227, 2021 Mar.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-35002039

RESUMO

One of the challenging problems in neuroimaging is the principled incorporation of information from different imaging modalities. Data from each modality are frequently analyzed separately using, for instance, dimensionality reduction techniques, which result in a loss of mutual information. We propose a novel regularization method, generalized ridgified Partially Empirical Eigenvectors for Regression (griPEER), to estimate associations between the brain structure features and a scalar outcome within the generalized linear regression framework. griPEER improves the regression coefficient estimation by providing a principled approach to use external information from the structural brain connectivity. Specifically, we incorporate a penalty term, derived from the structural connectivity Laplacian matrix, in the penalized generalized linear regression. In this work, we address both theoretical and computational issues and demonstrate the robustness of our method despite incomplete information about the structural brain connectivity. In addition, we also provide a significance testing procedure for performing inference on the estimated coefficients. Finally, griPEER is evaluated both in extensive simulation studies and using clinical data to classify HIV+ and HIV- individuals.


L'un des défis en imagerie cérébrale consiste à établir les principes pour incorporer de l'information provenant de différentes modalités d'imagerie. Les données de chaque modalité sont fréquemment analysées séparément, exploitant par exemple des techniques de réduction de la dimension, ce qui conduit à une perte d'information mutuelle. Les auteurs proposent une nouvelle méthode de régularisation, griPEER (ou par vecteurs propres ridgifiés partiellement empiriques généralisés pour la régression) afin d'estimer l'association entre des caratéristiques de structures du cerveau et une variable réponse scalaire dans le cadre d'une régression linéaire généralisée. Les griPEER améliorent l'estimation des coefficients de régression en établissant les principes d'une approche permettant d'utiliser des informations externes de connectivité des structures du cerveau. À cet effet, les auteurs ajoutent au modèle de régression pénalisée généralisé un terme de pénalité dérivé de la matrice laplacienne de connectivité structurelle. Les auteurs résolvent des problèmes théoriques et calculatoires, puis démontrent la robustesse de leur méthode lorsque l'information à propos de la connectivité du cerveau est incomplète. De plus, ils présentent une procédure de test d'hypothèse permettant de l'inférence au sujet des paramètres estimés. Finalement, les auteurs évaluent les griPEER dans de vastes études de simulation et en utilisant des données cliniques afin de classifier les individus en VIH+ et VIH−.

3.
Neuroimage ; 209: 116515, 2020 04 01.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-31904492

RESUMO

Human functional brain connectivity is usually measured either at "rest" or during cognitive tasks, ignoring life's moments of mental transition. We propose a different approach to understanding brain network transitions. We applied a novel independent component analysis of functional connectivity during motor inhibition (stop signal task) and during the continuous transition to an immediately ensuing rest. A functional network reconfiguration process emerged that: (i) was most prominent in those without familial alcoholism risk, (ii) encompassed brain areas engaged by the task, yet (iii) appeared only transiently after task cessation. The pattern was not present in a pre-task rest scan or in the remaining minutes of post-task rest. Finally, this transient network reconfiguration related to a key behavioral trait of addiction risk: reward delay discounting. These novel findings illustrate how dynamic brain functional reconfiguration during normally unstudied periods of cognitive transition might reflect addiction vulnerability, and potentially other forms of brain dysfunction.


Assuntos
Alcoolismo/fisiopatologia , Córtex Cerebral/fisiopatologia , Conectoma , Desvalorização pelo Atraso/fisiologia , Predisposição Genética para Doença , Inibição Psicológica , Atividade Motora/fisiologia , Rede Nervosa/fisiologia , Recompensa , Adulto , Alcoolismo/diagnóstico por imagem , Córtex Cerebral/diagnóstico por imagem , Feminino , Humanos , Imageamento por Ressonância Magnética , Masculino , Rede Nervosa/diagnóstico por imagem , Fatores de Tempo , Adulto Jovem
4.
Neuroimage ; 221: 117181, 2020 11 01.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-32702487

RESUMO

It has been well established that Functional Connectomes (FCs), as estimated from functional MRI (fMRI) data, have an individual fingerprint that can be used to identify an individual from a population (subject-identification). Although identification rate is high when using resting-state FCs, other tasks show moderate to low values. Furthermore, identification rate is task-dependent, and is low when distinct cognitive states, as captured by different fMRI tasks, are compared. Here we propose an embedding framework, GEFF (Graph Embedding for Functional Fingerprinting), based on group-level decomposition of FCs into eigenvectors. GEFF creates an eigenspace representation of a group of subjects using one or more task FCs (Learning Stage). In the Identification Stage, we compare new instances of FCs from the Learning subjects within this eigenspace (validation dataset). The validation dataset contains FCs either from the same tasks as the Learning dataset or from the remaining tasks that were not included in Learning. Assessment of validation FCs within the eigenspace results in significantly increased subject-identification rates for all fMRI tasks tested and potentially task-independent fingerprinting process. It is noteworthy that combining resting-state with one fMRI task for GEFF Learning Stage covers most of the cognitive space for subject identification. Thus, while designing an experiment, one could choose a task fMRI to ask a specific question and combine it with resting-state fMRI to extract maximum subject differentiability using GEFF. In addition to subject-identification, GEFF was also used for identification of cognitive states, i.e. to identify the task associated to a given FC, regardless of the subject being already in the Learning dataset or not (subject-independent task-identification). In addition, we also show that eigenvectors from the Learning Stage can be characterized as task- and subject-dominant, subject-dominant or neither, using two-way ANOVA of their corresponding loadings, providing a deeper insight into the extent of variance in functional connectivity across individuals and cognitive states.


Assuntos
Encéfalo/fisiologia , Cognição/fisiologia , Conectoma/métodos , Imageamento por Ressonância Magnética/métodos , Modelos Teóricos , Adulto , Encéfalo/diagnóstico por imagem , Feminino , Humanos , Processamento de Imagem Assistida por Computador , Masculino , Adulto Jovem
5.
Neuroimage ; 202: 115967, 2019 11 15.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-31352124

RESUMO

Multi-site studies are becoming important to increase statistical power, enhance generalizability, and to improve the likelihood of pooling relevant subgroups together-activities which are otherwise limited by the availability of subjects or funds at a single site. Even with harmonized imaging sequences, site-dependent variability can mask the advantages of these multi-site studies. The aim of this study was to assess multi-site reproducibility in resting-state functional connectivity "fingerprints", and to improve identifiability of functional connectomes. The individual fingerprinting of functional connectivity profiles is promising due to its potential as a robust neuroimaging biomarker with which to draw single-subject inferences. We evaluated, on two independent multi-site datasets, individual fingerprints in test-retest visit pairs within and across two sites and present a generalized framework based on principal component analysis to improve identifiability. Those principal components that maximized differential identifiability of a training dataset were used as an orthogonal connectivity basis to reconstruct the individual functional connectomes of training and validation sets. The optimally reconstructed functional connectomes showed a substantial improvement in individual fingerprinting of the subjects within and across the two sites and test-retest visit pairs relative to the original data. A notable increase in ICC values for functional edges and resting-state networks were also observed for reconstructed functional connectomes. Improvements in identifiability were not found to be affected by global signal regression. Post-hoc analyses assessed the effect of the number of fMRI volumes on identifiability and showed that multi-site differential identifiability was for all cases maximized after optimal reconstruction. Finally, the generalizability of the optimal set of orthogonal basis of each dataset was evaluated through a leave-one-out procedure. Overall, results demonstrate that the data-driven framework presented in this study systematically improves identifiability in resting-state functional connectomes in multi-site studies.


Assuntos
Encéfalo/diagnóstico por imagem , Conectoma/normas , Imageamento por Ressonância Magnética/normas , Estudos Multicêntricos como Assunto/normas , Rede Nervosa/diagnóstico por imagem , Adolescente , Adulto , Encéfalo/fisiologia , Estudos de Coortes , Conectoma/métodos , Feminino , Humanos , Imageamento por Ressonância Magnética/métodos , Masculino , Estudos Multicêntricos como Assunto/métodos , Rede Nervosa/fisiologia , Adulto Jovem
6.
Alcohol Clin Exp Res ; 42(5): 889-896, 2018 05.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-29543332

RESUMO

BACKGROUND: Diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) has been widely used to investigate the integrity of white matter (WM; indexed by fractional anisotropy [FA]) in alcohol dependence and cigarette smoking. These disorders are highly comorbid, yet cigarette use has often not been adequately controlled in neuroimaging studies of alcohol-dependent populations. In addition, information on WM deficits in currently drinking, nontreatment-seeking (NTS) individuals with alcohol dependence is limited. Therefore, the aim of this work was to investigate WM microstructural integrity in alcohol use disorder by comparing matched samples of cigarette smoking NTS and social drinkers (SD). METHODS: Thirty-eight smoking NTS and 19 smoking SD subjects underwent DWI as well as structural magnetic resonance imaging. After an in-house preprocessing of the DWI data, FA images were analyzed with tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS). FA obtained from the TBSS skeleton was tested for correlation with recent alcohol consumption. RESULTS: Smoking NTS had lower FA relative to smoking SD, predominantly in the left hemisphere (p < 0.05, family-wise error rate corrected across FA skeleton). Across the full sample, FA and number of drinks per week were negatively related (ρ = -0.348, p = 0.008). Qualitative analyses of the structural connections through compromised WM as identified by TBSS showed differential connectivity of gray matter in NTS compared to SD subjects of left frontal, temporal, and parietal regions. CONCLUSIONS: NTS subjects had lower WM FA than SD, indicating compromised WM integrity in the NTS population. The inverse relationship of entire WM skeleton FA with self-reported alcohol consumption supports previous evidence of a continuum of detrimental effects of alcohol consumption on WM. These results provide additional evidence that alcohol dependence is associated with reduced WM integrity in currently drinking NTS alcohol-dependent individuals, after controlling for the key variable of cigarette smoking.


Assuntos
Alcoolismo/patologia , Encéfalo/patologia , Substância Branca/patologia , Adulto , Anisotropia , Estudos de Casos e Controles , Imagem de Tensor de Difusão , Feminino , Lateralidade Funcional , Humanos , Imageamento por Ressonância Magnética , Masculino , Pessoa de Meia-Idade , Vias Neurais/patologia , Neuroimagem , Fumar , Adulto Jovem
7.
Neuroimage ; 148: 201-211, 2017 03 01.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-28093358

RESUMO

Examining task-free functional connectivity (FC) in the human brain offers insights on how spontaneous integration and segregation of information relate to human cognition, and how this organization may be altered in different conditions, and neurological disorders. This is particularly relevant for patients in disorders of consciousness (DOC) following severe acquired brain damage and coma, one of the most devastating conditions in modern medical care. We present a novel data-driven methodology, connICA, which implements Independent Component Analysis (ICA) for the extraction of robust independent FC patterns (FC-traits) from a set of individual functional connectomes, without imposing any a priori data stratification into groups. We here apply connICA to investigate associations between network traits derived from task-free FC and cognitive/clinical features that define levels of consciousness. Three main independent FC-traits were identified and linked to consciousness-related clinical features. The first one represents the functional configuration of a "resting" human brain, and it is associated to a sedative (sevoflurane), the overall effect of the pathology and the level of arousal. The second FC-trait reflects the disconnection of the visual and sensory-motor connectivity patterns. It also relates to the time since the insult and to the ability of communicating with the external environment. The third FC-trait isolates the connectivity pattern encompassing the fronto-parietal and the default-mode network areas as well as the interaction between left and right hemispheres, which are also associated to the awareness of the self and its surroundings. Each FC-trait represents a distinct functional process with a role in the degradation of conscious states of functional brain networks, shedding further light on the functional sub-circuits that get disrupted in severe brain-damage.


Assuntos
Mapeamento Encefálico/métodos , Transtornos da Consciência/psicologia , Estado de Consciência/fisiologia , Vias Neurais/fisiologia , Adulto , Anestésicos Inalatórios/farmacologia , Nível de Alerta/efeitos dos fármacos , Cognição/fisiologia , Estudos de Coortes , Estado de Consciência/efeitos dos fármacos , Transtornos da Consciência/induzido quimicamente , Transtornos da Consciência/diagnóstico por imagem , Feminino , Lobo Frontal/diagnóstico por imagem , Lobo Frontal/fisiologia , Humanos , Imageamento por Ressonância Magnética , Masculino , Processos Mentais/fisiologia , Éteres Metílicos/farmacologia , Pessoa de Meia-Idade , Vias Neurais/diagnóstico por imagem , Vias Neurais/efeitos dos fármacos , Lobo Parietal/diagnóstico por imagem , Lobo Parietal/fisiologia , Sensação/efeitos dos fármacos , Sevoflurano , Percepção Visual/efeitos dos fármacos
8.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A ; 111(2): 833-8, 2014 Jan 14.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-24379387

RESUMO

The complex relationship between structural and functional connectivity, as measured by noninvasive imaging of the human brain, poses many unresolved challenges and open questions. Here, we apply analytic measures of network communication to the structural connectivity of the human brain and explore the capacity of these measures to predict resting-state functional connectivity across three independently acquired datasets. We focus on the layout of shortest paths across the network and on two communication measures--search information and path transitivity--which account for how these paths are embedded in the rest of the network. Search information is an existing measure of information needed to access or trace shortest paths; we introduce path transitivity to measure the density of local detours along the shortest path. We find that both search information and path transitivity predict the strength of functional connectivity among both connected and unconnected node pairs. They do so at levels that match or significantly exceed path length measures, Euclidean distance, as well as computational models of neural dynamics. This capacity suggests that dynamic couplings due to interactions among neural elements in brain networks are substantially influenced by the broader network context adjacent to the shortest communication pathways.


Assuntos
Encéfalo/fisiologia , Comunicação Celular/fisiologia , Conectoma , Modelos Neurológicos , Rede Nervosa/fisiologia , Encéfalo/anatomia & histologia , Imagem de Difusão por Ressonância Magnética , Feminino , Humanos , Modelos Lineares , Masculino , Rede Nervosa/anatomia & histologia
9.
Neuroimage ; 124(Pt A): 1054-1064, 2016 Jan 01.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-26427642

RESUMO

The human connectome represents a network map of the brain's wiring diagram and the pattern into which its connections are organized is thought to play an important role in cognitive function. The generative rules that shape the topology of the human connectome remain incompletely understood. Earlier work in model organisms has suggested that wiring rules based on geometric relationships (distance) can account for many but likely not all topological features. Here we systematically explore a family of generative models of the human connectome that yield synthetic networks designed according to different wiring rules combining geometric and a broad range of topological factors. We find that a combination of geometric constraints with a homophilic attachment mechanism can create synthetic networks that closely match many topological characteristics of individual human connectomes, including features that were not included in the optimization of the generative model itself. We use these models to investigate a lifespan dataset and show that, with age, the model parameters undergo progressive changes, suggesting a rebalancing of the generative factors underlying the connectome across the lifespan.


Assuntos
Conectoma/métodos , Modelos Neurológicos , Adolescente , Adulto , Idoso , Idoso de 80 Anos ou mais , Envelhecimento/psicologia , Algoritmos , Encéfalo/fisiologia , Criança , Feminino , Humanos , Imageamento por Ressonância Magnética , Masculino , Pessoa de Meia-Idade , Redes Neurais de Computação , Adulto Jovem
10.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A ; 110(33): 13316-21, 2013 Aug 13.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-23898177

RESUMO

Hierarchy seems to pervade complexity in both living and artificial systems. Despite its relevance, no general theory that captures all features of hierarchy and its origins has been proposed yet. Here we present a formal approach resulting from the convergence of theoretical morphology and network theory that allows constructing a 3D morphospace of hierarchies and hence comparing the hierarchical organization of ecological, cellular, technological, and social networks. Embedded within large voids in the morphospace of all possible hierarchies, four major groups are identified. Two of them match the expected from random networks with similar connectivity, thus suggesting that nonadaptive factors are at work. Ecological and gene networks define the other two, indicating that their topological order is the result of functional constraints. These results are consistent with an exploration of the morphospace, using in silico evolved networks.


Assuntos
Evolução Biológica , Fenômenos Fisiológicos Celulares , Ecossistema , Redes Reguladoras de Genes , Modelos Teóricos , Apoio Social
11.
PLoS Comput Biol ; 10(12): e1003982, 2014 Dec.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-25474350

RESUMO

The hippocampal formation is a key structure for memory function in the brain. The functional anatomy of the brain suggests that the hippocampus may be a convergence zone, as it receives polysensory input from distributed association areas throughout the neocortex. However, recent quantitative graph-theoretic analyses of the static large-scale connectome have failed to demonstrate the centrality of the hippocampus; in the context of the whole brain, the hippocampus is not among the most connected or reachable nodes. Here we show that when communication dynamics are taken into account, the hippocampus is a key hub in the connectome. Using a novel computational model, we demonstrate that large-scale brain network topology is organized to funnel and concentrate information flow in the hippocampus, supporting the long-standing hypothesis that this region acts as a critical convergence zone. Our results indicate that the functional capacity of the hippocampus is shaped by its embedding in the large-scale connectome.


Assuntos
Conectoma , Hipocampo/fisiologia , Modelos Neurológicos , Vias Neurais/fisiologia , Animais , Biologia Computacional , Bases de Dados Factuais , Macaca
12.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A ; 109(28): 11372-7, 2012 Jul 10.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-22711833

RESUMO

Network studies of human brain structural connectivity have identified a specific set of brain regions that are both highly connected and highly central. Recent analyses have shown that these putative hub regions are mutually and densely interconnected, forming a "rich club" within the human brain. Here we show that the set of pathways linking rich club regions forms a central high-cost, high-capacity backbone for global brain communication. Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) data of two sets of 40 healthy subjects were used to map structural brain networks. The contributions to network cost and communication capacity of global cortico-cortical connections were assessed through measures of their topology and spatial embedding. Rich club connections were found to be more costly than predicted by their density alone and accounted for 40% of the total communication cost. Furthermore, 69% of all minimally short paths between node pairs were found to travel through the rich club and a large proportion of these communication paths consisted of ordered sequences of edges ("path motifs") that first fed into, then traversed, and finally exited the rich club, while passing through nodes of increasing and then decreasing degree. The prevalence of short paths that follow such ordered degree sequences suggests that neural communication might take advantage of strategies for dynamic routing of information between brain regions, with an important role for a highly central rich club. Taken together, our results show that rich club connections make an important contribution to interregional signal traffic, forming a central high-cost, high-capacity backbone for global brain communication.


Assuntos
Mapeamento Encefálico/métodos , Encéfalo/fisiologia , Algoritmos , Comunicação , Imagem de Tensor de Difusão/métodos , Humanos , Modelos Biológicos , Modelos Neurológicos , Modelos Estatísticos , Vias Neurais , Neurônios/fisiologia
13.
Neuroimage ; 102 Pt 2: 345-57, 2014 Nov 15.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-25109530

RESUMO

At rest, the brain's sensorimotor and higher cognitive systems engage in organized patterns of correlated activity forming resting-state networks. An important empirical question is how functional connectivity and structural connectivity within and between resting-state networks change with age. In this study we use network modeling techniques to identify significant changes in network organization across the human lifespan. The results of this study demonstrate that whole-brain functional and structural connectivity both exhibit reorganization with age. On average, functional connections within resting-state networks weaken in magnitude while connections between resting-state networks tend to increase. These changes can be localized to a small subset of functional connections that exhibit systematic changes across the lifespan. Collectively, changes in functional connectivity are also manifest at a system-wide level, as components of the control, default mode, saliency/ventral attention, dorsal attention, and visual networks become less functionally cohesive, as evidenced by decreased component modularity. Paralleling this functional reorganization is a decrease in the density and weight of anatomical white-matter connections. Hub regions are particularly affected by these changes, and the capacity of those regions to communicate with other regions exhibits a lifelong pattern of decline. Finally, the relationship between functional connectivity and structural connectivity also appears to change with age; functional connectivity along multi-step structural paths tends to be stronger in older subjects than in younger subjects. Overall, our analysis points to age-related changes in inter-regional communication unfolding within and between resting-state networks.


Assuntos
Envelhecimento/fisiologia , Encéfalo/anatomia & histologia , Encéfalo/fisiologia , Rede Nervosa/anatomia & histologia , Rede Nervosa/fisiologia , Adolescente , Adulto , Idoso , Idoso de 80 Anos ou mais , Mapeamento Encefálico , Criança , Imagem de Tensor de Difusão , Feminino , Humanos , Processamento de Imagem Assistida por Computador , Imageamento por Ressonância Magnética , Masculino , Pessoa de Meia-Idade , Modelos Neurológicos , Descanso , Adulto Jovem
14.
IEEE Trans Biomed Eng ; 71(4): 1378-1390, 2024 Apr.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-37995175

RESUMO

OBJECTIVE: We address the problem of finding brain connectivities that are associated with a clinical outcome or phenotype. METHODS: The proposed framework regresses a (scalar) clinical outcome on matrix-variate predictors which arise in the form of brain connectivity matrices. For example, in a large cohort of subjects we estimate those regions of functional connectivities that are associated with neurocognitive scores. We approach this high-dimensional yet highly structured estimation problem by formulating a regularized estimation process that results in a low-rank coefficient matrix having a sparse set of nonzero entries which represent regions of biologically relevant connectivities. In contrast to the recent literature on estimating a sparse, low-rank matrix from a single noisy observation, our scalar-on-matrix regression framework produces a data-driven extraction of structures that are associated with a clinical response. The method, called Sparsity Inducing Nuclear-Norm Estimator (SpINNEr), simultaneously constrains the regression coefficient matrix in two ways: a nuclear norm penalty encourages low-rank structure while an l1 norm encourages entry-wise sparsity. RESULTS: Our simulations show that SpINNEr outperforms other methods in estimation accuracy when the response-related entries (representing the brain's functional connectivity) are arranged in well-connected communities. SpINNEr is applied to investigate associations between HIV-related outcomes and functional connectivity in the human brain. CONCLUSION AND SIGNIFICANCE: Overall, this work demonstrates the potential of SpINNEr to recover sparse and low-rank estimates under scalar-on-matrix regression framework.


Assuntos
Algoritmos , Encéfalo , Humanos , Encéfalo/diagnóstico por imagem , Encéfalo/fisiologia
15.
Sci Rep ; 14(1): 1747, 2024 01 19.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-38243048

RESUMO

American football has become the focus of numerous studies highlighting a growing concern that cumulative exposure to repetitive, sports-related head acceleration events (HAEs) may have negative consequences for brain health, even in the absence of a diagnosed concussion. In this longitudinal study, brain functional connectivity was analyzed in a cohort of high school American football athletes over a single play season and compared against participants in non-collision high school sports. Football athletes underwent four resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging sessions: once before (pre-season), twice during (in-season), and once 34-80 days after the contact activities play season ended (post-season). For each imaging session, functional connectomes (FCs) were computed for each athlete and compared across sessions using a metric reflecting the (self) similarity between two FCs. HAEs were monitored during all practices and games throughout the season using head-mounted sensors. Relative to the pre-season scan session, football athletes exhibited decreased FC self-similarity at the later in-season session, with apparent recovery of self-similarity by the time of the post-season session. In addition, both within and post-season self-similarity was correlated with cumulative exposure to head acceleration events. These results suggest that repetitive exposure to HAEs produces alterations in functional brain connectivity and highlight the necessity of collision-free recovery periods for football athletes.


Assuntos
Futebol Americano , Imageamento por Ressonância Magnética , Humanos , Estudos Longitudinais , Encéfalo/diagnóstico por imagem , Instituições Acadêmicas , Atletas
16.
ArXiv ; 2024 May 24.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-38827458

RESUMO

Human brain function dynamically adjusts to ever-changing stimuli from the external environment. Studies characterizing brain functional reconfiguration are nevertheless scarce. Here we present a principled mathematical framework to quantify brain functional reconfiguration when engaging and disengaging from a stop signal task (SST). We apply tangent space projection (a Riemannian geometry mapping technique) to transform functional connectomes (FCs) and quantify functional reconfiguration using the correlation distance of the resulting tangent-FCs. Our goal was to compare functional reconfigurations in individuals at risk for alcohol use disorder (AUD). We hypothesized that functional reconfigurations when transitioning in/from a task would be influenced by family history of alcohol use disorder (FHA) and other AUD risk factors. Multilinear regression model results showed that engaging and disengaging functional reconfiguration were driven by different AUD risk factors. Functional reconfiguration when engaging in the SST was negatively associated with recent drinking. When disengaging from the SST, however, functional reconfiguration was negatively associated with FHA. In both models, several other factors contributed to the explanation of functional reconfiguration. This study demonstrates that tangent-FCs can characterize task-induced functional reconfiguration, and that it is related to AUD risk.

17.
Neuroimage ; 83: 646-57, 2013 Dec.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-23831414

RESUMO

High-resolution isotropic three-dimensional reconstructions of human brain gray and white matter structures can be characterized to quantify aspects of their shape, volume and topological complexity. In particular, methods based on fractal analysis have been applied in neuroimaging studies to quantify the structural complexity of the brain in both healthy and impaired conditions. The usefulness of such measures for characterizing individual differences in brain structure critically depends on their within-subject reproducibility in order to allow the robust detection of between-subject differences. This study analyzes key analytic parameters of three fractal-based methods that rely on the box-counting algorithm with the aim to maximize within-subject reproducibility of the fractal characterizations of different brain objects, including the pial surface, the cortical ribbon volume, the white matter volume and the gray matter/white matter boundary. Two separate datasets originating from different imaging centers were analyzed, comprising 50 subjects with three and 24 subjects with four successive scanning sessions per subject, respectively. The reproducibility of fractal measures was statistically assessed by computing their intra-class correlations. Results reveal differences between different fractal estimators and allow the identification of several parameters that are critical for high reproducibility. Highest reproducibility with intra-class correlations in the range of 0.9-0.95 is achieved with the correlation dimension. Further analyses of the fractal dimensions of parcellated cortical and subcortical gray matter regions suggest robustly estimated and region-specific patterns of individual variability. These results are valuable for defining appropriate parameter configurations when studying changes in fractal descriptors of human brain structure, for instance in studies of neurological diseases that do not allow repeated measurements or for disease-course longitudinal studies.


Assuntos
Algoritmos , Encéfalo/anatomia & histologia , Fractais , Processamento de Imagem Assistida por Computador/métodos , Adulto , Encéfalo/fisiologia , Feminino , Humanos , Imageamento por Ressonância Magnética , Masculino , Reprodutibilidade dos Testes , Adulto Jovem
18.
Neuroimage Clin ; 38: 103391, 2023.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-37003128

RESUMO

Patients with Schizophrenia may show different clinical presentations, not only regarding inter-individual comparisons but also in one specific subject over time. In fMRI studies, functional connectomes have been shown to carry valuable individual level information, which can be associated with cognitive and behavioral variables. Moreover, functional connectomes have been used to identify subjects within a group, as if they were fingerprints. For the particular case of Schizophrenia, it has been shown that there is reduced connectome stability as well as higher inter-individual variability. Here, we studied inter and intra-individual heterogeneity by exploring functional connectomes' variability and related it with clinical variables (PANSS Total scores and antipsychotic's doses). Our sample consisted of 30 patients with First Episode of Psychosis and 32 Healthy Controls, with a test-retest approach of two resting-state fMRI scanning sessions. In our patients' group, we found increased deviation from healthy functional connectomes and increased intragroup inter-subject variability, which was positively correlated to symptoms' levels in six subnetworks (visual, somatomotor, dorsal attention, ventral attention, frontoparietal and DMN). Moreover, changes in symptom severity were positively related to changes in deviation from healthy functional connectomes. Regarding intra-subject variability, we were unable to replicate previous findings of reduced connectome stability (i.e., increased intra-subject variability), but we found a trend suggesting that result. Our findings highlight the relevance of variability characterization in Schizophrenia, and they can be related to evidence of Schizophrenia patients having a noisy functional connectome.


Assuntos
Conectoma , Transtornos Psicóticos , Esquizofrenia , Humanos , Encéfalo/diagnóstico por imagem , Rede Nervosa/diagnóstico por imagem , Transtornos Psicóticos/diagnóstico por imagem , Esquizofrenia/diagnóstico por imagem , Imageamento por Ressonância Magnética
19.
iScience ; 26(9): 107624, 2023 Sep 15.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-37694156

RESUMO

Functional connectomes (FCs) containing pairwise estimations of functional couplings between pairs of brain regions are commonly represented by correlation matrices. As symmetric positive definite matrices, FCs can be transformed via tangent space projections, resulting into tangent-FCs. Tangent-FCs have led to more accurate models predicting brain conditions or aging. Motivated by the fact that tangent-FCs seem to be better biomarkers than FCs, we hypothesized that tangent-FCs have also a higher fingerprint. We explored the effects of six factors: fMRI condition, scan length, parcellation granularity, reference matrix, main-diagonal regularization, and distance metric. Our results showed that identification rates are systematically higher when using tangent-FCs across the "fingerprint gradient" (here including test-retest, monozygotic and dizygotic twins). Highest identification rates were achieved when minimally (0.01) regularizing FCs while performing tangent space projection using Riemann reference matrix and using correlation distance to compare the resulting tangent-FCs. Such configuration was validated in a second dataset (resting-state).

20.
bioRxiv ; 2023 Dec 22.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-38187668

RESUMO

Human whole-brain functional connectivity networks have been shown to exhibit both local/quasilocal (e.g., set of functional sub-circuits induced by node or edge attributes) and non-local (e.g., higher-order functional coordination patterns) properties. Nonetheless, the non-local properties of topological strata induced by local/quasilocal functional sub-circuits have yet to be addressed. To that end, we proposed a homological formalism that enables the quantification of higher-order characteristics of human brain functional sub-circuits. Our results indicated that each homological order uniquely unravels diverse, complementary properties of human brain functional sub-circuits. Noticeably, the H1 homological distance between rest and motor task were observed at both whole-brain and sub-circuit consolidated level which suggested the self-similarity property of human brain functional connectivity unraveled by homological kernel. Furthermore, at the whole-brain level, the rest-task differentiation was found to be most prominent between rest and different tasks at different homological orders: i) Emotion task H0, ii) Motor task H1, and iii) Working memory task H2. At the functional sub-circuit level, the rest-task functional dichotomy of default mode network is found to be mostly prominent at the first and second homological scaffolds. Also at such scale, we found that the limbic network plays a significant role in homological reconfiguration across both task- and subject- domain which sheds light to subsequent Investigations on the complex neuro-physiological role of such network. From a wider perspective, our formalism can be applied, beyond brain connectomics, to study non-localized coordination patterns of localized structures stretching across complex network fibers.

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