scholarly journals Age- and Sex-Related Topological Organization of Human Brain Functional Networks and Their Relationship to Cognition

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heidi Foo ◽  
Anbupalam Thalamuthu ◽  
Jiyang Jiang ◽  
Forrest Koch ◽  
Karen A. Mather ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Cognitive Performance ◽  
Large Population ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Brain Network ◽  
State Graph ◽  
Functional Brain ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Functional Brain Network ◽  
Age And Sex

Age and sex associated with changes in the functional brain network topology and cognition in large population of older adults have been poorly understood. We explored this question further by examining differences in 11 resting-state graph theory measures with respect to age, sex, and their relationships with cognitive performance in 17,127 United Kingdom Biobank participants (mean = 62.83 ± 7.41 years). Age was associated with an overall decrease in the effectiveness of network communication (i.e., integration) and loss of functional specialization (i.e., segregation) of specific brain regions. Sex differences were also observed, with women showing more efficient networks, which were less segregated than in men (FDR adjusted p < 0.05). The age-related changes were also more apparent in men than in women, which suggests that men may be more vulnerable to cognitive decline with age. Interestingly, while network segregation and strength of limbic network were only nominally associated with cognitive performance, the network measures collectively were significantly associated with cognition (FDR adjusted p ≤ 0.002). This may imply that individual measures may be inadequate to capture much of the variance in the neural activity or its output and need further refinement. The complexity of the organization of the functional brain may be shaped by the age and sex of an individual, which ultimately may influence the cognitive performance of older adults. Age and sex stratification may be used to inform clinical neuroscience research to identify older adults at risk of cognitive dysfunction.

scholarly journals Age- and sex-related topological organisation of human brain functional networks and their relationship to cognition

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heidi Foo ◽  
Anbupalam Thalamuthu ◽  
Jiyang Jiang ◽  
Forrest C Koch ◽  
Karen Mather ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Performance ◽  
Resting State ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Brain Network ◽  
Functional Networks ◽  
State Graph ◽  
Uk Biobank ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Functional Brain Network ◽  
Age And Sex

Age and sex have been associated with changes in functional brain network topology, which may in turn affect cognition in older adults. We explored this question further by examining differences in 11 resting-state graph theory measures with respect to age, sex, and their relationships with cognitive performance in 17,127 UK Biobank participants. Age was associated with an overall decrease in the effectiveness of network communication (i.e. integration) and loss of functional specialisation (i.e. segregation) of specific brain regions. Sex differences were also observed, with women showing more efficient networks which were less segregated than in men. Age-related changes were also more apparent in men than women, which suggests that men may be more vulnerable to cognitive decline with age. Interestingly, while network segregation and strength of limbic network were only nominally associated with cognitive performance, the network measures collectively were significantly associated with cognition. This may imply that individual measures may be inadequate to capture much of the variance in neural activity or its output and need further refinement.

scholarly journals Age-related differences in functional brain network segregation are consistent with a cascade of cerebrovascular, structural, and cognitive effects

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tania S. Kong ◽  
Caterina Gratton ◽  
Kathy A. Low ◽  
Chin Hong Tan ◽  
Antonio M. Chiarelli ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
White Matter ◽  
Cognitive Performance ◽  
Cognitive Aging ◽  
Optical Tomography ◽  
Brain Network ◽  
Cortical Atrophy ◽  
Resting State Functional Connectivity ◽  
Functional Brain ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Functional Brain Network

Age-related declines in cognition are associated with widespread structural and functional brain changes, including changes in resting-state functional connectivity and gray and white matter status. Recently we have shown that the elasticity of cerebral arteries also explains some of the variance in cognitive and brain health in aging. Here, we investigated how network segregation, cerebral arterial elasticity (measured with pulse-DOT—the arterial pulse based on diffuse optical tomography) and gray and white matter status jointly account for age-related differences in cognitive performance. We hypothesized that at least some of the variance in brain and cognitive aging is linked to reduced cerebrovascular elasticity, leading to increased cortical atrophy and white matter abnormalities, which, in turn, are linked to reduced network segregation and decreases in cognitive performance. Pairwise comparisons between these variables are consistent with an exploratory hierarchical model linking them, especially when focusing on association network segregation (compared with segregation in sensorimotor networks). These findings suggest that preventing or slowing age-related changes in one or more of these factors may induce a neurophysiological cascade beneficial for preserving cognition in aging.

scholarly journals Depression Disorder Classification of fMRI Data Using Sparse Low-Rank Functional Brain Network and Graph-Based Features

2017 ◽  
Vol 2017 ◽  
pp. 1-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xin Wang ◽  
Yanshuang Ren ◽  
Wensheng Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Pearson Correlation ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Brain Network ◽  
Classification Performance ◽  
Low Rank ◽  
Fmri Data ◽  
Healthy Controls ◽  
Functional Brain ◽  
Functional Brain Network ◽  
Depression Disorder

Study of functional brain network (FBN) based on functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has proved successful in depression disorder classification. One popular approach to construct FBN is Pearson correlation. However, it only captures pairwise relationship between brain regions, while it ignores the influence of other brain regions. Another common issue existing in many depression disorder classification methods is applying only single local feature extracted from constructed FBN. To address these issues, we develop a new method to classify fMRI data of patients with depression and healthy controls. First, we construct the FBN using a sparse low-rank model, which considers the relationship between two brain regions given all the other brain regions. Moreover, it can automatically remove weak relationship and retain the modular structure of FBN. Secondly, FBN are effectively measured by eight graph-based features from different aspects. Tested on fMRI data of 31 patients with depression and 29 healthy controls, our method achieves 95% accuracy, 96.77% sensitivity, and 93.10% specificity, which outperforms the Pearson correlation FBN and sparse FBN. In addition, the combination of graph-based features in our method further improves classification performance. Moreover, we explore the discriminative brain regions that contribute to depression disorder classification, which can help understand the pathogenesis of depression disorder.

scholarly journals Expertise-related functional brain network efficiency in healthy older adults

2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia C. Binder ◽  
Ladina Bezzola ◽  
Aurea I. S. Haueter ◽  
Carina Klein ◽  
Jürg Kühnis ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Brain Network ◽  
Network Efficiency ◽  
Healthy Older Adults ◽  
Functional Brain ◽  
Functional Brain Network

scholarly journals Quantitative Identification of Functional Connectivity Disturbances in Neuropsychiatric Lupus Based on Resting-State fMRI: A Robust Machine Learning Approach

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 777
Author(s):  
Nicholas John Simos ◽  
Stavros I. Dimitriadis ◽  
Eleftherios Kavroulakis ◽  
Georgios C. Manikis ◽  
George Bertsias ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Machine Learning ◽  
Functional Connectivity ◽  
Lupus Erythematosus ◽  
Statistical Power ◽  
Functional Neuroimaging ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Brain Network ◽  
Functional Brain ◽  
Graph Metrics ◽  
Functional Brain Network

Neuropsychiatric systemic lupus erythematosus (NPSLE) is an autoimmune entity comprised of heterogenous syndromes affecting both the peripheral and central nervous system. Research on the pathophysiological substrate of NPSLE manifestations, including functional neuroimaging studies, is extremely limited. The present study examined person-specific patterns of whole-brain functional connectivity in NPSLE patients (n = 44) and age-matched healthy control participants (n = 39). Static functional connectivity graphs were calculated comprised of connection strengths between 90 brain regions. These connections were subsequently filtered through rigorous surrogate analysis, a technique borrowed from physics, novel to neuroimaging. Next, global as well as nodal network metrics were estimated for each individual functional brain network and were input to a robust machine learning algorithm consisting of a random forest feature selection and nested cross-validation strategy. The proposed pipeline is data-driven in its entirety, and several tests were performed in order to ensure model robustness. The best-fitting model utilizing nodal graph metrics for 11 brain regions was associated with 73.5% accuracy (74.5% sensitivity and 73% specificity) in discriminating NPSLE from healthy individuals with adequate statistical power. Closer inspection of graph metric values suggested an increased role within the functional brain network in NSPLE (indicated by higher nodal degree, local efficiency, betweenness centrality, or eigenvalue efficiency) as compared to healthy controls for seven brain regions and a reduced role for four areas. These findings corroborate earlier work regarding hemodynamic disturbances in these brain regions in NPSLE. The validity of the results is further supported by significant associations of certain selected graph metrics with accumulated organ damage incurred by lupus, with visuomotor performance and mental flexibility scores obtained independently from NPSLE patients.

Age-related changes in functional connectivity between young adulthood and late adulthood

2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (10) ◽  
pp. 4111-4122 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xin Xu ◽  
Qifan Kuang ◽  
Yongqing Zhang ◽  
Huijun Wang ◽  
Zhining Wen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Functional Connectivity ◽  
Young Adulthood ◽  
Brain Network ◽  
Late Adulthood ◽  
Functional Brain ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Functional Brain Network ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Network Metrics ◽  
Age Related Changes

The functional brain network in late adulthood has been found to show a significant difference from that in young adulthood using a variety of network metrics.

scholarly journals Different Modes of Low-Frequency Focused Ultrasound-Mediated Attenuation of Epilepsy Based on the Topological Theory

Micromachines ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 1001
Author(s):  
Minjian Zhang ◽  
Bo Li ◽  
Yafei Liu ◽  
Rongyu Tang ◽  
Yiran Lang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Focused Ultrasound ◽  
Continuous Wave ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Brain Network ◽  
Functional Brain ◽  
Functional Brain Network ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Brain Connections

Epilepsy is common brain dysfunction, where abnormal synchronized activities can be observed across multiple brain regions. Low-frequency focused pulsed ultrasound has been proven to modulate the epileptic brain network. In this study, we used two modes of low-intensity focused ultrasound (pulsed-wave and continuous-wave) to sonicate the brains of KA-induced epileptic rats, analyzed the EEG functional brain connections to explore their respective effect on the epileptic brain network, and discuss the mechanism of ultrasound neuromodulation. By comparing the brain network characteristics before and after sonication, we found that two modes of ultrasound both significantly affected the functional brain network, especially in the low-frequency band below 12 Hz. After two modes of sonication, the power spectral density of the EEG signals and the connection strength of the brain network were significantly reduced, but there was no significant difference between the two modes. Our results indicated that the ultrasound neuromodulation could effectively regulate the epileptic brain connections. The ultrasound-mediated attenuation of epilepsy was independent of modes of ultrasound.

scholarly journals Automated Extraction of Human Functional Brain Network Properties Associated with Working Memory Load through a Machine Learning-Based Feature Selection Algorithm

2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 ◽  
pp. 1-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Satoru Hiwa ◽  
Shogo Obuchi ◽  
Tomoyuki Hiroyasu
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Functional Connectivity ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Brain Network ◽  
Clustering Coefficient ◽  
Support Vector ◽  
Neural Basis ◽  
Functional Brain ◽  
Functional Brain Network ◽  
Network Properties

Working memory (WM) load-dependent changes of functional connectivity networks have previously been investigated by graph theoretical analysis. However, the extraordinary number of nodes represented within the complex network of the human brain has hindered the identification of functional regions and their network properties. In this paper, we propose a novel method for automatically extracting characteristic brain regions and their graph theoretical properties that reflect load-dependent changes in functional connectivity using a support vector machine classification and genetic algorithm optimization. The proposed method classified brain states during 2- and 3-back test conditions based upon each of the three regional graph theoretical metrics (degree, clustering coefficient, and betweenness centrality) and automatically identified those brain regions that were used for classification. The experimental results demonstrated that our method achieved a >90% of classification accuracy using each of the three graph metrics, whereas the accuracy of the conventional manual approach of assigning brain regions was only 80.4%. It has been revealed that the proposed framework can extract meaningful features of a functional brain network that is associated with WM load from a large number of nodal graph theoretical metrics without prior knowledge of the neural basis of WM.

Functional Brain Connectivity Hyper-Network Embedded with Structural Information for Epilepsy Diagnosis

2021 ◽  
pp. 2250029
Author(s):  
Geng Zhang ◽  
Qi Zhu ◽  
Jing Yang ◽  
Ruting Xu ◽  
Zhiqiang Zhang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Brain Connectivity ◽  
Medical Image Analysis ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Brain Network ◽  
Brain Diseases ◽  
Functional Brain ◽  
Functional Brain Network ◽  
Structural Brain Network ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Structural Brain

Automatic diagnosis of brain diseases based on brain connectivity network (BCN) classification is one of the hot research fields in medical image analysis. The functional brain network reflects the brain functional activities and structural brain network reflects the neural connections of the main brain regions. It is of great significance to explore and explain the inner mechanism of the brain and to understand and treat brain diseases. In this paper, based on the graph structure characteristics of brain network, the fusion model of functional brain network and structural brain network is designed to classify the diagnosis of brain mental diseases. Specifically, the main work of this paper is to use the Laplacian graph embed the information of diffusion tensor imaging, which contains the characteristics of structural brain networks, into the functional brain network with hyper-order functional connectivity information built based on functional magnetic resonance data using the sparse representation method, to obtain brain network with both functional and structural characteristics. Projection of the brain network and the two original modes data to the kernel space respectively and then classified by the multi-task learning method. Experiments on the epilepsy dataset show that our method has better performance than several state-of-the-art methods. In addition, brain regions and connections that are highly correlated with disease revealed by our method are discussed.

scholarly journals Changes in the Functional Brain Network of Children Undergoing Repeated Epilepsy Surgery: An EEG Source Connectivity Study

Diagnostics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 1234
Author(s):  
Giulia Iandolo ◽  
Nitish Chourasia ◽  
Georgios Ntolkeras ◽  
Joseph R. Madsen ◽  
Christos Papadelis ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Epilepsy Surgery ◽  
Brain Connectivity ◽  
Epileptiform Activity ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Brain Network ◽  
Rank Test ◽  
Functional Brain ◽  
Functional Brain Network ◽  
Repeated Surgery ◽  
Cortical Regions

About 30% of children with drug-resistant epilepsy (DRE) continue to have seizures after epilepsy surgery. Since epilepsy is increasingly conceptualized as a network disorder, understanding how brain regions interact may be critical for planning re-operation in these patients. We aimed to estimate functional brain connectivity using scalp EEG and its evolution over time in patients who had repeated surgery (RS-group, n = 9) and patients who had one successful surgery (seizure-free, SF-group, n = 12). We analyzed EEGs without epileptiform activity at varying time points (before and after each surgery). We estimated functional connectivity between cortical regions and their relative centrality within the network. We compared the pre- and post-surgical centrality of all the non-resected (untouched) regions (far or adjacent to resection) for each group (using the Wilcoxon signed rank test). In alpha, theta, and beta frequency bands, the post-surgical centrality of the untouched cortical regions increased in the SF group (p < 0.001) whereas they decreased (p < 0.05) or did not change (p > 0.05) in the RS group after failed surgeries; when re-operation was successful, the post-surgical centrality of far regions increased (p < 0.05). Our data suggest that removal of the epileptogenic focus in children with DRE leads to a gain in the network centrality of the untouched areas. In contrast, unaltered or decreased connectivity is seen when seizures persist after surgery.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document