Longitudinal gray matter atrophy and accompanied functional connectivity alterations in patients with pontine infarction

ABSTRACT

Objectives

To investigate the longitudinal changes in gray matter volume (GMV) and functional connectivity (FC) in patients with pontine infarction (PI) during a 6-month follow-up period.

Methods

Twenty-two patients underwent MRI scans and behavioral assessments at 1 week, 1 month, 3 months, and 6 months after PI. Twenty-two normal controls (NC) were administered once with a similar examination. Voxel-wise GMV analysis was used to investigate the difference between the 1 week of PI and NC groups. Longitudinal changes in GMV were assessed and then used as seed regions to explore the accompanying FC changes during the 6-month follow-up. Correlations of the behavioral scores with the imaging indices of clusters with altered GMV and FC were also investigated.

Results

The LPI group exhibited GMV atrophy in the left cerebellar Crus II, right cerebellar lobule VI, right Vermis VI, while the RPI group showed GMV atrophy in the left cerebellar Crus II. The significant decrease of GMV firstly appeared at 1 month and gradually decreased over time. When using brain regions with GMV atrophy as seeds, longitudinal analysis of FC showed a significant decrease between the left cerebellar Crus II and left middle frontal gyrus at 6 months in the LPI group. Furthermore, the longitudinally altered FC values were negatively correlated with motor scores over time.

Conclusion

These findings provide evidence for progressive GMV atrophy in the cerebellum and impaired relative FC in patients with PI, which could provide vital information for investigating neural bases of behavioral recovery in PI.

KEYWORDS:

• Pontine infarction
• gray matter
• atrophy
• functional connectivity

Abbreviations

MRI, Magnetic resonance imaging; GMV, Gray matter volume; FC, Functional connectivity; Bold, Blood oxygenation level dependent; FMT, Fugl–Meyer Test; RAVLT, Ray Auditory Verbal Learning Test; ROI, Region of interest; ANOVA, Analysis of variance.

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to our patients and their families for their continued support for our study.

Disclosure statement

One of the authors of this manuscript (Kaiyu Wang) is an employee of GE Healthcare. The remaining authors declare no relationships with any companies, whose products or services may be related to the subject matter of the article.

Author contributions

Ying Wei, Radiologist specialized in neurological disease. M. D. in Neuroimaging at Department of Radiology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University.

Caihong Wang, Attending doctor specialized in cerebrovascular disease. M.M. at Department of Radiology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University.

Jingchun Liu, Attending doctor specialized in cerebrovascular disease. M.M. at Department of Ra-diology, Tianjin Medical University General Hospital.

Peifang Miao, Attending doctor specialized in cerebrovascular disease. M.M. at Department of Ra-diology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University.

Yingying Wang, Radiologist specialized in neurological disease. M. M. in Neuroimaging at Depart-ment of Radiology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University.

Luobing Wu, Radiologist specialized in neurological disease. M. M. in Neuroimaging at Depart-ment of Radiology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University.

Kaiyu Wang, Biomedical Engineering, M.D in GE Healther

Jingliang Cheng, Chief physician specialized in cerebrovascular disease. M.M. at Department of Radiology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China National Natural Science Foundation of China (81871327), the Young Talents Promotion Program of Henan Province (2021HYTP012), and General Program Cultivation Foundation of Zhengzhou University (JC21854044);Young Talents Promotion Program of Henan Province[J21854044].