Abnormal Stability of Dynamic Functional Architecture in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis: A Preliminary Resting-State fMRI Study

Abstract

Purpose: Static and dynamic analyses for identifying functional connectivity (FC) have demonstrated brain dysfunctions in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). However, few studies on the stability of dynamic FC have been conducted among ALS patients. This study explored the change of functional stability in ALS and how it correlates with disease severity.Methods: We gathered resting-state functional magnetic resonance data from 20 patients with ALS and 22 healthy controls (HCs). The disease severity was assessed with the Revised ALS Functional Rating Scale (ALSFRS-R). We used a sliding window correlation approach to identify dynamic FC and measured the concordance of dynamic FC over time to obtain the functional stability of each voxel. We assessed the between-group difference in functional stability by voxel-wise two-sample t-test. The correlation between the functional stability index and ALSFRS-R in ALS patients was evaluated using Spearman's correlation analysis.Results: Compared with the HC group, the ALS group had significantly increased functional stability in the left pre-central and post-central gyrus and right temporal pole while decreased functional stability in the right middle and inferior frontal gyrus. The results revealed a significant correlation between ALSFRS-R and the mean functional stability in the right temporal pole (r = −0.452 and P = 0.046) in the ALS patients.Conclusions: ALS patients have abnormal stability of brain functional architecture, which is associated with the severity of the disease.

Dynamic Alterations in Functional Connectivity Density in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis: A Resting-State Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study

“…Another investigation has found increased dynamic FC stability in the left sensorimotor cortex and right temporal pole, whereas decreased functional stability was observed in the right middle/inferior frontal gyrus in ALS patients ( Wei et al, 2021 ). In addition, changes in dynamic FC property were correlated to ALS disease severity ( Wei et al, 2021 ). These studies have demonstrated that dynamic FC analysis has the potential to uncover underlying mechanisms of ALS and facilitate in the development of new neuroimaging biomarker.…”

“…In one recent resting-state fMRI study, individuals with ALS exhibited altered temporal traits of functional network connectivity, which is an informative variation of FC, between sensorimotor network and default mode/cognitive-control networks (Chen et al, 2021). Another investigation has found increased dynamic FC stability in the left sensorimotor cortex and right temporal pole, whereas decreased functional stability was observed in the right middle/inferior frontal gyrus in ALS patients (Wei et al, 2021). In addition, changes in dynamic FC property were correlated to ALS disease severity (Wei et al, 2021).…”

Altered dynamic functional architecture in type 2 diabetes mellitus

“…Yan found that functional stability is unevenly distributed in the cerebral cortex and regions with strong stability were mainly distributed in the default mode network. Another study showed that amyotrophic lateral sclerosis patients had abnormal stability of brain dynamic functional architecture, which was relevant to the severity of the disease ( 23 ). We speculated that stability of dynamic functional architecture, which captured more sensitive and time-varying information, could be an objective and meaningful method to reveal underlying brain changes and evaluate cognitive function from a new perspective.…”

Altered stability of dynamic brain functional architecture in primary open-angle glaucoma: a surface-based resting-state fMRI study

“…Higher stability values indicate more concordant and stable dynamic functional architecture configurations over time, whereas lower stability values imply a reduced capacity to coordinate information over time, suggesting that brain stability can rapidly transfer from one state to another (Li et al, 2020 ). To date, functional stability analysis has been employed in studies of neurological and psychiatric disorders, such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Wei et al, 2021 ), major depressive disorder (Zhu et al, 2020 ), and cirrhotic patients with minimal hepatic encephalopathy (Cai et al, 2022 ), shedding light on the underlying mechanisms of various neuropsychiatric disorders and potentially serving as a biomarker for disease progression monitoring. However, the stability of brain functional organization in POAG remains unexplored.…”