Abnormalities of visual search behaviour in ALS patients detected with event-related brain potentials

Münte, Thomas F.; Tröger, M.; Nusser, Isabel; Wieringa, Bernardina M.; Matzke, Mike; Johannes, Sönke; Dengler, Reinhard

doi:10.1080/146608299300079493

Cited by 16 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…Previous study by detecting spontaneous low-frequency fluctuations (LFF) of blood oxygen level–dependent signals of rfMRI showed decreased ALFF in the visual processing areas: the inferior occipital lobe and fusiform gyri (Luo et al, 2012 ). This result and our findings suggest a disorder of visual process, which is in accordance with previous task-related fMRI studies (Lulé et al, 2007 ; Wang et al, 2013 ) and electrophysiological studies(Münte et al, 1998 , 1999 ). A delayed and decreased response to visual stimuli was observed in sensory processing cortical areas in ALS patients by electrophysiological studies (Münte et al, 1998 , 1999 ), and a previous longitudinal study identified progressive reduced activation of extrastriate regions over the duration of ALS (Lulé et al, 2007 ).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 94%

Altered Brain Network in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis: A Resting Graph Theory-Based Network Study at Voxel-Wise Level

Zhou

et al. 2016

Front. Neurosci.

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Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a rare degenerative disorder characterized by loss of upper and lower motor neurons. Neuroimaging has provided noticeable evidence that ALS is a complex disease, and shown that anatomical and functional lesions extend beyond precentral cortices and corticospinal tracts, to include the corpus callosum; frontal, sensory, and premotor cortices; thalamus; and midbrain. The aim of this study is to investigate graph theory-based functional network abnormalities at voxel-wise level in ALS patients on a whole brain scale. Forty-three ALS patients and 44 age- and sex-matched healthy volunteers were enrolled. The voxel-wise network degree centrality (DC), a commonly employed graph-based measure of network organization, was used to characterize the alteration of whole brain functional network. Compared with the controls, the ALS patients showed significant increase of DC in the left cerebellum posterior lobes, bilateral cerebellum crus, bilateral occipital poles, right orbital frontal lobe, and bilateral prefrontal lobes; significant decrease of DC in the bilateral primary motor cortex, bilateral sensory motor region, right prefrontal lobe, left bilateral precuneus, bilateral lateral temporal lobes, left cingulate cortex, and bilateral visual processing cortex. The DC's z-scores of right inferior occipital gyrus were significant negative correlated with the ALSFRS-r scores. Our findings confirm that the regions with abnormal network DC in ALS patients were located in multiple brain regions including primary motor, somatosensory and extra-motor areas, supporting the concept that ALS is a multisystem disorder. Specifically, our study found that DC in the visual areas was altered and ALS patients with higher DC in right inferior occipital gyrus have more severity of disease. The result demonstrated that the altered DC value in this region can probably be used to assess severity of ALS.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 94%

Altered Brain Network in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis: A Resting Graph Theory-Based Network Study at Voxel-Wise Level

Zhou

et al. 2016

Front. Neurosci.

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“…This finding suggests a disturbance of visual process, which is in accordance with previous electrophysiological studies and task-related fMRI studies. A reduced and delayed response to visual stimuli was observed in sensory cortical processing areas in ALS patients by electrophysiological studies [64], [65], and progressive reduced activation of extrastriate areas over the course of ALS was identified by a previous longitudinal study [66]. Combining fMRI with structural MRI, researchers demonstrated the existence of a decreased response in secondary visual areas in ALS during visual stimulation, and significantly less functional white fiber tracts projecting to visual areas [67].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Patterns of Spontaneous Brain Activity in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis: A Resting-State fMRI Study

Chen

Huang

et al. 2012

PLoS ONE

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By detecting spontaneous low-frequency fluctuations (LFF) of blood oxygen level–dependent (BOLD) signals, resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rfMRI) measurements are believed to reflect spontaneous cerebral neural activity. Previous fMRI studies were focused on the examination of motor-related areas and little is known about the functional changes in the extra-motor areas in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) patients. The aim of this study is to investigate functional cerebral abnormalities in ALS patients on a whole brain scale. Twenty ALS patients and twenty age- and sex-matched healthy volunteers were enrolled. Voxel-based analysis was used to characterize the alteration of amplitude of low frequency fluctuation (ALFF). Compared with the controls, the ALS patients showed significantly decreased ALFF in the visual cortex, fusiform gyri and right postcentral gyrus; and significantly increased ALFF in the left medial frontal gyrus, and in right inferior frontal areas after grey matter (GM) correction. Taking GM volume as covariates, the ALFF results were approximately consistent with those without GM correction. In addition, ALFF value in left medial frontal gyrus was negatively correlated with the rate of disease progression and duration. Decreased functional activity observed in the present study indicates the underlying deficits of the sensory processing system in ALS. Increased functional activity points to a compensatory mechanism. Our findings suggest that ALS is a multisystem disease other than merely motor dysfunction and provide evidence that alterations of ALFF in the frontal areas may be a special marker of ALS.

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“…ALS is a neurodegenerative disease which involves mainly the motor system, but already early descriptions [70] and more recent neuropsychological [71–74], electrophysiological [75–77], neuropathological [14], and neuroimaging [78–80] studies pointed out that other than the motor regions of the nervous system are involved in the degenerative process. …”

Section: Functional Magnetic Resonance Imagingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Magnetic Resonance Imaging in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis

Kollewe

Körner

Dengler

et al. 2012

Neurology Research International

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Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a rapidly progressing neurodegenerative disorder which is incurable to date. As there are many ongoing studies with therapeutic candidates, it is of major interest to develop biomarkers not only to facilitate early diagnosis but also as a monitoring tool to predict disease progression and to enable correct randomization of patients in clinical trials. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has made substantial progress over the last three decades and is a practical, noninvasive method to gain insights into the pathology of the disease. Disease-specific MRI changes therefore represent potential biomarkers for ALS. In this paper we give an overview of structural and functional MRI alterations in ALS with the focus on task-free resting-state investigations to detect cortical network failures.

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Abnormalities of visual search behaviour in ALS patients detected with event-related brain potentials

Cited by 16 publications

References 47 publications

Altered Brain Network in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis: A Resting Graph Theory-Based Network Study at Voxel-Wise Level

Altered Brain Network in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis: A Resting Graph Theory-Based Network Study at Voxel-Wise Level

Patterns of Spontaneous Brain Activity in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis: A Resting-State fMRI Study

Magnetic Resonance Imaging in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis

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