Frequency Specific Alterations of the Degree Centrality in Patients with Acute Basal Ganglia Ischemic Stroke: A Resting-State fMRI Study

Abstract

This study intends to investigate the frequency specific of brain oscillation activity in patients with acute basal ganglia ischemic stroke (BGIS) by using degree centrality (DC) method. Here, 34 acute BGIS patients and 43 healthy controls (HCs) underwent resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) scanning to investigate abnormal neural activity using the DC method within three frequency bands: conventional band (0.01-0.08Hz), slow‑4 band (0.027-0.073Hz), slow‑5 band (0.01-0.027Hz). Moreover, correlation between abnormal DC values and clinical indicators was performed. In conventional band, compare to HCs, BGIS patients exhibited increased DC values in the right superior temporal gyrus, right superior frontal gyrus and left angular gyrus. In slow-4 band, BGIS patients showed greater increased DC values in the bilateral precentral gyrus. In slow-5 band, BGIS patients presented increased DC values in the left precuneus, bilateral caudate, left angular gyrus and vermis_4_5. Additionally, the DC values increased in the right caudate (r=0.400; p =0.019) and vermis_4_5 (r=0.431; p =0.011) in slow-5 band were positively correlated with NIHSS and the DC values increased in the right caudate (r=-0.339; p =0.050) were negatively correlated with BI in patients. Our findings showed that the DC changes in BGIS were frequency specific and the slow-5 band could be more sensitive to examine the DC changes, and revealed that the DC changes reflected the potential neurobiological mechanism of brain functional reorganization in patients with acute BGIS.