TY  - JOUR
A1  - Fleischer, Vinzenz
A1  - Muthuraman, Muthuraman
A1  - Anwar, Abdul Rauf
A1  - Gonzalez-Escamilla, Gabriel
A1  - Radetz, Angela
A1  - Gracien, René-Maxime
A1  - Bittner, Stefan
A1  - Lüssi, Felix Emanuel
A1  - Meuth, Sven
A1  - Zipp, Frauke
A1  - Groppa, Sergiu
T1  - Continuous reorganization of cortical information flow in multiple sclerosis: A longitudinal fMRI effective connectivity study
T2  - Scientific reports
N2  - Effective connectivity (EC) is able to explore causal effects between brain areas and can depict mechanisms that underlie repair and adaptation in chronic brain diseases. Thus, the application of EC techniques in multiple sclerosis (MS) has the potential to determine directionality of neuronal interactions and may provide an imaging biomarker for disease progression. Here, serial longitudinal structural and resting-state fMRI was performed at 12-week intervals over one year in twelve MS patients. Twelve healthy subjects served as controls (HC). Two approaches for EC quantification were used: Causal Bayesian Network (CBN) and Time-resolved Partial Directed Coherence (TPDC). The EC strength was correlated with the Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS) and Fatigue Scale for Motor and Cognitive functions (FSMC). Our findings demonstrated a longitudinal increase in EC between specific brain regions, detected in both the CBN and TPDC analysis in MS patients. In particular, EC from the deep grey matter, frontal, prefrontal and temporal regions showed a continuous increase over the study period. No longitudinal changes in EC were attested in HC during the study. Furthermore, we observed an association between clinical performance and EC strength. In particular, the EC increase in fronto-cerebellar connections showed an inverse correlation with the EDSS and FSMC. Our data depict continuous functional reorganization between specific brain regions indicated by increasing EC over time in MS, which is not detectable in HC. In particular, fronto-cerebellar connections, which were closely related to clinical performance, may provide a marker of brain plasticity and functional reserve in MS.
KW  - Multiple sclerosis
KW  - Neuroscience
Y1  - 2020
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/53109
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-531097
SN  - 2045-2322
N1  - Open Access: This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
VL  - 10
IS  - 1, Art. 806
SP  - 1
EP  - 11
PB  - Macmillan Publishers Limited, part of Springer Nature
CY  - [London]
ER  -