Perturbation of whole-brain dynamics in silico reveals mechanistic differences between brain states

NeuroImage ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 169 ◽  
pp. 46-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gustavo Deco ◽  
Joana Cabral ◽  
Victor M. Saenger ◽  
Melanie Boly ◽  
Enzo Tagliazucchi ◽  
...  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anira Escrichs ◽  
Yonatan Sanz Perl ◽  
Noelia Martinez-Molina ◽  
Carles Biarnes ◽  
Josep Garre ◽  
...  

Understanding the brain changes occurring during aging can provide new insights for developing treatments that alleviate or reverse cognitive decline. Neurostimulation techniques have emerged as potential treatments for brain disorders and to improve cognitive functions. Nevertheless, given the ethical restrictions of neurostimulation approaches, in silico perturbation protocols based on causal whole-brain models are fundamental to gaining a mechanistic understanding of brain dynamics. Furthermore, this strategy could serve as a more specific biomarker relating local activity with global brain dynamics. Here, we used a large resting-state fMRI dataset divided into middle-aged (N=310, aged < 65 years) and older adults (N=310, aged >= 65) to characterize brain states in each group as a probabilistic metastable substate (PMS) space, each with a probabilistic occurrence and frequency. Then, we fitted the PMS to a whole-brain model and applied in silico stimulations with different intensities in each node to force transitions from the brain states of the older group to the middle-age group. We found that the precuneus, a brain area belonging to the default mode network and the rich club, was the best stimulation target. These findings might have important implications for designing neurostimulation interventions to revert the effects of aging on whole-brain dynamics.


NeuroImage ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 118551
Author(s):  
J.A. Galadí ◽  
S. Silva Pereira ◽  
Y. Sanz Perl ◽  
M.L. Kringelbach ◽  
I. Gayte ◽  
...  

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacob Billings ◽  
Alessio Medda ◽  
Sadia Shakil ◽  
Xiaohong Shen ◽  
Amrit Kashyap ◽  
...  

AbstractMeasures of whole-brain activity, from techniques such as functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, provide a means to observe the brain’s dynamical operations. However, interpretation of whole-brain dynamics has been stymied by the inherently high-dimensional structure of brain activity. The present research addresses this challenge through a series of scale transformations in the spectral, spatial, and relational domains. Instantaneous multispectral dynamics are first developed from input data via a wavelet filter bank. Voxel-level signals are then projected onto a representative set of spatially independent components. The correlation distance over the instantaneous wavelet-ICA state vectors is a graph that may be embedded onto a lower-dimensional space to assist the interpretation of state-space dynamics. Applying this procedure to a large sample of resting and task data (acquired through the Human Connectome Project), we segment the empirical state space into a continuum of stimulus-dependent brain states. We also demonstrate that resting brain activity includes brain states that are very similar to those adopted during some tasks, as well as brain states that are distinct from experimentally-defined tasks. Back-projection of segmented brain states onto the brain’s surface reveals the patterns of brain activity that support each experimental state.


2021 ◽  
Vol 42 (7) ◽  
pp. 2181-2200
Author(s):  
Daniela Zöller ◽  
Corrado Sandini ◽  
Marie Schaer ◽  
Stephan Eliez ◽  
Danielle S. Bassett ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Beatrice M. Jobst ◽  
Selen Atasoy ◽  
Adrián Ponce-Alvarez ◽  
Ana Sanjuán ◽  
Leor Roseman ◽  
...  

AbstractLysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) is a potent psychedelic drug, which has seen a revival in clinical and pharmacological research within recent years. Human neuroimaging studies have shown fundamental changes in brain-wide functional connectivity and an expansion of dynamical brain states, thus raising the question about a mechanistic explanation of the dynamics underlying these alterations. Here, we applied a novel perturbational approach based on a whole-brain computational model, which opens up the possibility to externally perturb different brain regions in silico and investigate differences in dynamical stability of different brain states, i.e. the dynamical response of a certain brain region to an external perturbation. After adjusting the whole-brain model parameters to reflect the dynamics of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) BOLD signals recorded under the influence of LSD or placebo, perturbations of different brain areas were simulated by either promoting or disrupting synchronization in the regarding brain region. After perturbation offset, we quantified the recovery characteristics of the brain area to its basal dynamical state with the Perturbational Integration Latency Index (PILI) and used this measure to distinguish between the two brain states. We found significant changes in dynamical complexity with consistently higher PILI values after LSD intake on a global level, which indicates a shift of the brain’s global working point further away from a stable equilibrium as compared to normal conditions. On a local level, we found that the largest differences were measured within the limbic network, the visual network and the default mode network. Additionally, we found a higher variability of PILI values across different brain regions after LSD intake, indicating higher response diversity under LSD after an external perturbation. Our results provide important new insights into the brain-wide dynamical changes underlying the psychedelic state - here provoked by LSD intake - and underline possible future clinical applications of psychedelic drugs in particular psychiatric disorders.HighlightsNovel offline perturbational method applied on functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data under the effect of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD)Shift of brain’s global working point to more complex dynamics after LSD intakeConsistently longer recovery time after model perturbation under LSD influenceStrongest effects in resting state networks relevant for psychedelic experienceHigher response diversity across brain regions under LSD influence after an external in silico perturbation


2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chengyuan Wu ◽  
Caio Matias ◽  
Thomas Foltynie ◽  
Patricia Limousin ◽  
Ludvic Zrinzo ◽  
...  

Background: Neuronal loss in Parkinson’s Disease (PD) leads to widespread neural network dysfunction. While graph theory allows for analysis of whole brain networks, patterns of functional connectivity (FC) associated with motor response to deep brain stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus (STN-DBS) have yet to be explored.Objective/Hypothesis: To investigate the distributed network properties associated with STN-DBS in patients with advanced PD.Methods: Eighteen patients underwent 3-Tesla resting state functional MRI (rs-fMRI) prior to STN-DBS. Improvement in UPDRS-III scores following STN-DBS were assessed 1 year after implantation. Independent component analysis (ICA) was applied to extract spatially independent components (ICs) from the rs-fMRI. FC between ICs was calculated across the entire time series and for dynamic brain states. Graph theory analysis was performed to investigate whole brain network topography in static and dynamic states.Results: Dynamic analysis identified two unique brain states: a relative hypoconnected state and a relative hyperconnected state. Time spent in a state, dwell time, and number of transitions were not correlated with DBS response. There were no significant FC findings, but graph theory analysis demonstrated significant relationships with STN-DBS response only during the hypoconnected state – STN-DBS was negatively correlated with network assortativity.Conclusion: Given the widespread effects of dopamine depletion in PD, analysis of whole brain networks is critical to our understanding of the pathophysiology of this disease. Only by leveraging graph theoretical analysis of dynamic FC were we able to isolate a hypoconnected brain state that contained distinct network properties associated with the clinical effects of STN-DBS.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyesam Jung ◽  
Simon B. Eickhoff ◽  
Oleksandr V. Popovych

AbstractDynamical modeling of the resting-state brain dynamics essentially relies on the empirical neuroimaging data utilized for the model derivation and validation. There is however still no standardized data processing for magnetic resonance imaging pipelines and the structural and functional connectomes involved in the models. In this study, we thus address how the parameters of diffusion-weighted data processing for structural connectivity (SC) can influence the validation results of the whole-brain mathematical models and search for the optimal parameter settings. On this way, we simulate the functional connectivity by systems of coupled oscillators, where the underlying network is constructed from the empirical SC and evaluate the performance of the models for varying parameters of data processing. For this, we introduce a set of simulation conditions including the varying number of total streamlines of the whole-brain tractography (WBT) used for extraction of SC, cortical parcellations based on functional and anatomical brain properties and distinct model fitting modalities. We observed that the graph-theoretical network properties of structural connectome can be affected by varying tractography density and strongly relate to the model performance. We explored free parameters of the considered models and found the optimal parameter configurations, where the model dynamics closely replicates the empirical data. We also found that the optimal number of the total streamlines of WBT can vary for different brain atlases. Consequently, we suggest a way how to improve the model performance based on the network properties and the optimal parameter configurations from multiple WBT conditions. Furthermore, the population of subjects can be stratified into subgroups with divergent behaviors induced by the varying number of WBT streamlines such that different recommendations can be made with respect to the data processing for individual subjects and brain parcellations.Author summaryThe human brain connectome at macro level provides an anatomical constitution of inter-regional connections through the white matter in the brain. Understanding the brain dynamics grounded on the structural architecture is one of the most studied and important topics actively debated in the neuroimaging research. However, the ground truth for the adequate processing and reconstruction of the human brain connectome in vivo is absent, which is crucial for evaluation of the results of the data-driven as well as model-based approaches to brain investigation. In this study we thus evaluate the effect of the whole-brain tractography density on the structural brain architecture by varying the number of total axonal fiber streamlines. The obtained results are validated throughout the dynamical modeling of the resting-state brain dynamics. We found that the tractography density may strongly affect the graph-theoretical network properties of the structural connectome. The obtained results also show that a dense whole-brain tractography is not always the best condition for the modeling, which depends on a selected brain parcellation used for the calculation of the structural connectivity and derivation of the model network. Our findings provide suggestions for the optimal data processing for neuroimaging research and brain modeling.


ASN NEURO ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 175909141775380 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angela M. Muller ◽  
Naznin Virji-Babul

Sports-related concussion in youth is a major public health issue. Evaluating the diffuse and often subtle changes in structure and function that occur in the brain, particularly in this population, remains a significant challenge. The goal of this pilot study was to evaluate the relationship between the intrinsic dynamics of the brain using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) and relate these findings to structural brain correlates from diffusion tensor imaging in a group of adolescents with sports-related concussions ( n = 6) and a group of healthy adolescent athletes ( n = 6). We analyzed rs-fMRI data using a sliding windows approach and related the functional findings to structural brain correlates by applying graph theory analysis to the diffusion tensor imaging data. Within the resting-state condition, we extracted three separate brain states in both groups. Our analysis revealed that the brain dynamics in healthy adolescents was characterized by a dynamic pattern, shifting equally between three brain states; however, in adolescents with concussion, the pattern was more static with a longer time spent in one brain state. Importantly, this lack of dynamic flexibility in the concussed group was associated with increased nodal strength in the left middle frontal gyrus, suggesting reorganization in a region related to attention. This preliminary report shows that both the intrinsic brain dynamics and structural organization are altered in networks related to attention in adolescents with concussion. This first report in adolescents will be used to inform future studies in a larger cohort.


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