Abnormal Rich Club Organization of Structural Network as a Neuroimaging Feature in Relation With the Severity of Primary Insomnia.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Wu Y
PROVIDER: S-EPMC7190795 | biostudies-literature | 2020
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:ObjectiveThe purpose of this study was to investigate whether the large-scale structural rich club organization was abnormal in patients with Leber's hereditary optic neuropathy (LHON) using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), and the associations among disrupted brain structural connectivity, disease duration, and neuro-ophthalmological impairment.MethodsNineteen acute, 34 chronic LHON patients, and 36 healthy controls (HC) underwent DTI and neuro-ophthalmological measurements. The brain structural network and rich club organization were constructed based on deterministic fiber tracking at the individual level. Then intergroup differences among the acute, chronic LHON patients and healthy controls (HC) in three types of structural connections, including rich club, feeder, and local ones, were compared. Network-based Statistics (NBS) was also used to test the intergroup connectivity differences for each fiber. Several linear and nonlinear curve fit models were applied to explore the associations among large-scale brain structural connectivity, disease duration, and neuro-ophthalmological metrics.ResultsCompared to the HC, both the acute and chronic LHON patients had consistently significantly lower fractional anisotropy (FA) and higher radial diffusion (RD) for feeder connections (p < 0.05, FDR correction). Acute LHON patients had significantly lower FA and higher RD for local connections (p < 0.05, FDR correction). There was no significant difference in large-scale brain structural connectivity between acute and chronic LHON (p > 0.05, FDR correction). NBS also identified reduced FA of three feeder connections and five local ones linking visual, auditory, and basal ganglia areas in LHON patients (p < 0.05, FDR correction). No structural connections showed linear or nonlinear association with either disease duration or neuro-ophthalmological indicators (p > 0.05, FDR correction). A significant negative correlation was shown between the retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) thickness and disease duration (p < 0.05, FDR correction).ConclusionsAbnormal rich club organization of the structural network was identified in both the acute and chronic LHON. Furthermore, our findings suggest the coexistence of both primary and secondary connectivity damage in the LHON.
| S-EPMC8010853 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Emerging research indicates interruptions in the wiring organization of the brain network in Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer's disease (AD). Due to the important role of rich-club organization in distinguishing abnormalities of AD patients and the close relationship between structural connectivity (SC) and functional connectivity (FC), our study examined whether changes in SC-FC coupling and the relationship with abnormal rich-club organizations during the development of diseases may contribute to the pathophysiology of AD. Structural diffusion-tensor imaging (DTI) and resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) were performed in 38 normal controls (NCs), 40 MCI patients and 19 AD patients. Measures of the rich-club structure and its role in global structural-functional coupling were administered. Our study found decreased levels of feeder and local connectivity in MCI and AD patients, which were the main contributing factors to the lower efficiency of the brain structural network. Another important finding was that we have more accurately characterized the changing pattern of functional brain dynamics. The enhanced coupling between SC and FC in MCI and AD patients might be due to disruptions in optimal structural organization. More interestingly, we also found increases in the SC-FC coupling for feeder and local connections in MCI and AD patients. SC-FC coupling also showed significant differences between MCI and AD patients, mainly between the abnormal feeder connections. The connection density and coupling strength were significantly correlated with clinical metrics in patients. The present findings enhanced our understanding of the neurophysiologic mechanisms associated with MCI and AD.
| S-EPMC7013042 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Combining diffusion magnetic resonance imaging and network analysis in the adult human brain has identified a set of highly connected cortical hubs that form a "rich club"--a high-cost, high-capacity backbone thought to enable efficient network communication. Rich-club architecture appears to be a persistent feature of the mature mammalian brain, but it is not known when this structure emerges during human development. In this longitudinal study we chart the emergence of structural organization in mid to late gestation. We demonstrate that a rich club of interconnected cortical hubs is already present by 30 wk gestation. Subsequently, until the time of normal birth, the principal development is a proliferation of connections between core hubs and the rest of the brain. We also consider the impact of environmental factors on early network development, and compare term-born neonates to preterm infants at term-equivalent age. Though rich-club organization remains intact following premature birth, we reveal significant disruptions in both in cortical-subcortical connectivity and short-distance corticocortical connections. Rich club organization is present well before the normal time of birth and may provide the fundamental structural architecture for the subsequent emergence of complex neurological functions. Premature exposure to the extrauterine environment is associated with altered network architecture and reduced network capacity, which may in part account for the high prevalence of cognitive problems in preterm infants.
| S-EPMC4034228 | biostudies-other
Project description:Ischemic stroke involves multiple pathophysiological mechanisms with complex interactions. Efforts to decipher those mechanisms and understand the evolution of cerebral injury is key for developing successful interventions. In an innovative approach, we use literature mining, natural language processing and systems biology tools to construct, annotate and curate a brain ischemia interactome. The curated interactome includes proteins that are deregulated after cerebral ischemia in human and experimental stroke. Network analysis of the interactome revealed a rich-club organization indicating the presence of a densely interconnected hub structure of prominent contributors to disease pathogenesis. Functional annotation of the interactome uncovered prominent pathways and highlighted the critical role of the complement and coagulation cascade in the initiation and amplification of injury starting by activation of the rich-club. We performed an in-silico screen for putative interventions that have pleiotropic effects on rich-club components and we identified estrogen as a prominent candidate. Our findings show that complex network analysis of disease related interactomes may lead to a better understanding of pathogenic mechanisms and provide cost-effective and mechanism-based discovery of candidate therapeutics.
| S-EPMC4550934 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Neuroimaging studies suggest disrupted connections of the brain white matter (WM) network in bipolar disorder (BD). A group of highly interconnected high-density structures, termed the 'rich club,' represents an important network for brain functioning. Recent works have revealed abnormal rich club organization in brain networks in BD. However, little is known regarding changes in the rich club organization of the hemispheric WM network in BD. Forty-nine BD patients and fifty-five age- and sex-matched normal controls (NCs) underwent diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). Graph theory approaches were applied to quantify group-specific rich club organization and nodal degree of hemispheric WM networks. We demonstrated that rich club organization of hemispheric WM networks in BD was disrupted, with disrupted feeder and local connections among hub and peripheral regions located in the default mode network (DMN) and the control execution network (CEN). In addition, BD patients showed abnormal asymmetry in the feeder and local connections, involving the hub and peripheral regions associated with emotion regulation and visuospatial functions. Moreover, the clinical symptoms of BD showed a significant correlation with the aberrant asymmetry in the regional degree of peripheral regions. These findings reveal that BD is closely associated with disrupted feeder and local connections but no alteration in rich-club connections in the rich club organization of hemispheric WM networks and provide novel insight into the changes of brain functions in BD.
| S-EPMC7479125 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Graph-theoretical analysis of brain connectivity data has revealed significant features of brain network organization across a range of species. Consistently, large-scale anatomical networks exhibit highly nonrandom attributes including an efficient small world modular architecture, with distinct network communities that are interlinked by hub regions. The functional importance of hubs motivates a closer examination of their mutual interconnections, specifically to examine the hypothesis that hub regions are more densely linked than expected based on their degree alone, i.e. forming a central rich club. Extending recent findings of rich club topology in the cat and human brain, this report presents evidence for the existence of rich club organization in the cerebral cortex of a non-human primate, the macaque monkey, based on a connectivity data set representing a collation of numerous tract tracing studies. Rich club regions comprise portions of prefrontal, parietal, temporal and insular cortex and are widely distributed across network communities. An analysis of network motifs reveals that rich club regions tend to form star-like configurations, indicative of their central embedding within sets of nodes. In addition, rich club nodes and edges participate in a large number of short paths across the network, and thus contribute disproportionately to global communication. As rich club regions tend to attract and disperse communication paths, many of the paths follow a characteristic pattern of first increasing and then decreasing node degree. Finally, the existence of non-reciprocal projections imposes a net directional flow of paths into and out of the rich club, with some regions preferentially attracting and others dispersing signals. Overall, the demonstration of rich club organization in a non-human primate contributes to our understanding of the network principles underlying neural connectivity in the mammalian brain, and further supports the hypothesis that rich club regions and connections have a central role in global brain communication.
| S-EPMC3460908 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Recent studies using Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) have proposed that the brain's white matter is organized as a rich club, whereby the most highly connected regions of the brain are also highly connected to each other. Here we use both functional and diffusion-weighted MRI in the human brain to investigate whether the rich club phenomena is present with functional connectivity, and how this organization relates to the structural phenomena. We also examine whether rich club regions serve to integrate information between distinct brain systems, and conclude with a brief investigation of the developmental trajectory of rich-club phenomena. In agreement with prior work, both adults and children showed robust structural rich club organization, comprising regions of the superior medial frontal/dACC, medial parietal/PCC, insula, and inferior temporal cortex. We also show that these regions were highly integrated across the brain's major networks. Functional brain networks were found to have rich club phenomena in a similar spatial layout, but a high level of segregation between systems. While no significant differences between adults and children were found structurally, adults showed significantly greater functional rich club organization. This difference appeared to be driven by a specific set of connections between superior parietal, insula, and supramarginal cortex. In sum, this work highlights the existence of both a structural and functional rich club in adult and child populations with some functional changes over development. It also offers a potential target in examining atypical network organization in common developmental brain disorders, such as ADHD and Autism.
| S-EPMC3915050 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Cerebral small vessel disease (SVD) is considered the most important vascular contributor to the development of cognitive impairment and dementia. There is increasing awareness that SVD exerts its clinical effects by disrupting white matter connections, predominantly disrupting connections between rich club nodes, a set of highly connected and interconnected regions. Here we examined the progression of disturbances in rich club organization in older adults with SVD and their associations with conventional SVD markers and cognitive decline. We additionally investigated associations of baseline network measures with dementia. In 270 participants of the RUN DMC study, we performed diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and cognitive assessments longitudinally. Rich club organization was examined in structural networks derived from DTI followed by deterministic tractography. Global efficiency (p<0.05) and strength of rich club connections (p<0.001) declined during follow-up. Decline in strength of peripheral connections was associated with a decline in overall cognition (β=0.164; p<0.01), psychomotor speed (β=0.151; p<0.05) and executive function (β=0.117; p<0.05). Baseline network measures were reduced in participants with dementia, and the association between WMH and dementia was causally mediated by global efficiency (p = =0.037) and peripheral connection strength (p = =0.040). SVD-related disturbances in rich club organization progressed over time, predominantly in participants with severe SVD. In this study, we found no specific role of rich club connectivity disruption in causing cognitive decline or dementia. The effect of WMH on dementia was mediated by global network efficiency and the strength of peripheral connections, suggesting an important role for network disruption in causing cognitive decline and dementia in older adults with SVD.
| S-EPMC6978216 | biostudies-literature
Project description:In models of excitable dynamics on graphs, excitations can travel in both directions of an undirected link. However, as a striking interplay of dynamics and network topology, excitations often establish a directional preference. Some of these cases of "link-usage asymmetry" are local in nature and can be mechanistically understood, for instance, from the degree gradient of a link (i.e., the difference in node degrees at both ends of the link). Other contributions to the link-usage asymmetry are instead, as we show, self-organized in nature, and strictly nonlocal. This is the case for excitation waves, where the preferential propagation of excitations along a link depends on its orientation with respect to a hub acting as a source, even if the link in question is several steps away from the hub itself. Here, we identify and quantify the contribution of such self-organized patterns to link-usage asymmetry and show that they extend to ranges significantly longer than those ascribed to local patterns. We introduce a topological characterization, the hub-set-orientation prevalence of a link, which indicates its average orientation with respect to the hubs of a graph. Our numerical results show that the hub-set-orientation prevalence of a link strongly correlates with the preferential usage of the link in the direction of propagation away from the hub core of the graph. Our methodology is embedding-agnostic and allows for the measurement of wave signals and the sizes of the cores from which they originate.
| S-EPMC7414146 | biostudies-literature
Project description:ObjectiveTo investigate whether the structural connectivity of the brain's rich-club organization is altered in patients with primary progressive MS and whether such changes to this fundamental network feature are associated with disability measures.MethodsWe recruited 37 patients with primary progressive MS and 21 healthy controls for an observational cohort study. Structural connectomes were reconstructed based on diffusion-weighted imaging data using probabilistic tractography and analyzed with graph theory.ResultsWe observed the same topological organization of brain networks in patients and controls. Consistent with the originally defined rich-club regions, we identified superior frontal, precuneus, superior parietal, and insular cortex in both hemispheres as rich-club nodes. Connectivity within the rich club was significantly reduced in patients with MS (p = 0.039). The extent of reduced rich-club connectivity correlated with clinical measurements of mobility (Kendall rank correlation coefficient τ = -0.20, p = 0.047), hand function (τ = -0.26, p = 0.014), and information processing speed (τ = -0.20, p = 0.049).ConclusionsIn patients with primary progressive MS, the fundamental organization of the structural connectome in rich-club and peripheral nodes was preserved and did not differ from healthy controls. The proportion of rich-club connections was altered and correlated with disability measures. Thus, the rich-club organization of the brain may be a promising network phenotype for understanding the patterns and mechanisms of neurodegeneration in MS.
| S-EPMC5532749 | biostudies-literature