A study on resting-state brain functional connectivity strength in ischemic stroke hemiplegia patients
Objective To investigate the changes in resting-state functional connectivity strength(FCS)at the whole-brain voxel level in patients with cerebral ischemic stroke(CIS)hemiplegia,and to analyze the correlation between neurofunctional impairment and motor function with whole-brain FCS in CIS patients.Methods Resting functional magnetic resonance imaging(rs-fMRI)scans were performed on 30 patients with ischemic stroke hem-iplegia(CIS group)and 30 normal volunteers(healthy group)matched in age,gender,and education level.Whole-brain FCS maps were obtained after data processing.Neurofunctional impairment was assessed using the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale(NIHSS),and motor function was evaluated using the Fugl-Meyer As-sessment(FMA).Independent sample t-tests were used to compare FCS differences between the two groups.The relationship between FCS values of abnormal brain regions and NIHSS and FMA in the CIS group was as-sessed using Spearman correlation analysis.Results Compared to the healthy control group,the CIS group showed significantly reduced FCS values in the right precentral gyrus,bilateral postcentral gyrus,right superior frontal gyrus,right middle frontal gyrus,right central sulcus,bilateral superior frontal gyrus,and bilateral sup-plementary motor area(AlphaSim correction,cluster level P<0.05).In CIS patients,FCS values in the right precentral gyrus(rs=-0.467,P=0.009),right medial superior frontal gyrus(rs=-0.455,P=0.012),and right superior frontal gyrus(rs=-0.434,P=0.017)were negatively correlated with NIHSS scores.The right precentral gyrus(rs=0.482,P=0.007)showed a positive correlation with FMA scores.Conclusion Functional connectivity strength in several sensorimotor-related brain regions was altered in CIS-induced hemiple-gic patients.This contributes to the understanding of the neural mechanisms underlying the reshaping of sensory and motor functions after CIS-induced hemiplegia.
ischemic strokehemiplegiaresting-state functional magnetic resonance imagingfunctional con-nectivity