Journal
JOURNAL OF CEREBRAL BLOOD FLOW AND METABOLISM
Volume 35, Issue 9, Pages 1426-1434Publisher
NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP
DOI: 10.1038/jcbfm.2015.67
Keywords
connectome; diffusion tensor imaging; graph theory; silent lacunar infarcts; white matter network
Categories
Funding
- State Key Program of National Natural Science of China [81430100]
- Beijing New Medical Discipline Based group [100270569]
- Natural Science Foundation of China [30873458, 81173460]
- China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences [Z0251, Z0288]
- program for New Century Excellent Talents in University [NCET-10-0249]
- project of Institute of Basic Research in Clinical Medicine
- National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars [81225012]
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Silent lacunar infarcts, which are present in over 20% of healthy elderly individuals, are associated with subtle deficits in cognitive functions. However, it remains largely unclear how these silent brain infarcts lead to cognitive deficits and even dementia. Here, we used diffusion tensor imaging tractography and graph theory to examine the topological organization of white matter networks in 27 patients with silent lacunar infarcts in the basal ganglia territory and 30 healthy controls. A whole-brain white matter network was constructed for each subject, where the graph nodes represented brain regions and the edges represented interregional white matter tracts. Compared with the controls, the patients exhibited a significant reduction in local efficiency and global efficiency. In addition, a total of eighteen brain regions showed significantly reduced nodal efficiency in patients. Intriguingly, nodal efficiency-behavior associations were significantly different between the two groups. The present findings provide new aspects into our understanding of silent infarcts that even small lesions in subcortical brain regions may affect large-scale cortical white matter network, as such may be the link between subcortical silent infarcts and the associated cognitive impairments. Our findings highlight the need for network-level neuroimaging assessment and more medical care for individuals with silent subcortical infarcts.
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