Spatially Overlapping Regions Show Abnormal Thalamo-frontal Circuit and Abnormal Precuneus in Disorders of Consciousness

Understanding the neural mechanisms of disorders of consciousness (DOC) is essential for estimating the conscious level and diagnosing DOC patients. Although previous studies reported brain functional connectivity (FC) and spontaneous neural activity patterns associated with consciousness, the relat...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Brain topography 2019-05, Vol.32 (3), p.445-460
Main Authors: Wu, Xiaoyan, Xie, Qiuyou, Liu, Xiaojin, Huang, Huiyuan, Ma, Qing, Wang, Junjing, Zhong, Miao, He, Yanbin, Niu, Chen, Chen, Yan, Deng, Feng, Ni, Xiaoxiao, He, Yuan, Guo, Yequn, Yu, Ronghao, Huang, Ruiwang
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Activity patterns
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Biomedicine
Brain mapping
Coma
Consciousness
Cortex (parietal)
Frontal gyrus
Functional magnetic resonance imaging
Neural networks
Neuroimaging
Neurology
Neurosciences
Original Paper
Psychiatry
Thalamus
Unconsciousness
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Summary:Understanding the neural mechanisms of disorders of consciousness (DOC) is essential for estimating the conscious level and diagnosing DOC patients. Although previous studies reported brain functional connectivity (FC) and spontaneous neural activity patterns associated with consciousness, the relationship between them remains unclear. In this study, we identified the abnormal brain regions in DOC patients by performing voxel-wise FC strength (FCS) and fractional amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations (fALFF) analyses on resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging data of 15 DOC patients and 24 healthy controls. Furthermore, we detected spatial intersections between two measures and estimated the correlations between either the FCS or the fALFF and the subscales of the Coma Recovery Scale-Revised (CRS-R). We found that the right superior frontal gyrus, left thalamus and right precuneus in which the DOC patients had a lower local FCS and fALFF than healthy controls, are coincident with regions of the mesocircuit model. In the right precuneus, the local FCS/fALFF was significantly positively correlated with the oromotor and motor scores/motor score of the CRS-R. Our findings may indicate that the co-occurrent pattern of spontaneous neural activity and functional connectivity in the thalamo-frontal circuit and the precuneus are associated with motor function in DOC patients.
ISSN:0896-0267
1573-6792
DOI:10.1007/s10548-018-0693-0