Stuck in a State of Inattention? Functional Hyperconnectivity as an Indicator of Disturbed Intrinsic Brain Dynamics in Adolescents With Concussion: A Pilot Study

Abstract

Sports-related concussion in youth is a major public health issue. Evaluating the diffuse and often subtle changes in structure and function that occur in the brain, particularly in this population, remains a significant challenge. The goal of this pilot study was to evaluate the relationship between the intrinsic dynamics of the brain using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) and relate these findings to structural brain correlates from diffusion tensor imaging in a group of adolescents with sports-related concussions (n = 6) and a group of healthy adolescent athletes (n = 6). We analyzed rs-fMRI data using a sliding windows approach and related the functional findings to structural brain correlates by applying graph theory analysis to the diffusion tensor imaging data. Within the resting-state condition, we extracted three separate brain states in both groups. Our analysis revealed that the brain dynamics in healthy adolescents was characterized by a dynamic pattern, shifting equally between three brain states; however, in adolescents with concussion, the pattern was more static with a longer time spent in one brain state. Importantly, this lack of dynamic flexibility in the concussed group was associated with increased nodal strength in the left middle frontal gyrus, suggesting reorganization in a region related to attention. This preliminary report shows that both the intrinsic brain dynamics and structural organization are altered in networks related to attention in adolescents with concussion. This first report in adolescents will be used to inform future studies in a larger cohort.

Adaptive frequency-based modeling of whole-brain oscillations: Predicting regional vulnerability and hazardousness rates

“…Interestingly, hyper-connectivity of frontoparietal regions in traumatic brain injury patients is attributed to the increased awareness of the external environment. These observations may explain the reports of cognitive fatigue in these patients (Bharath et al, 2015; Muller & Virji-Babul, 2018; Shumskaya, Andriessen, Norris, & Vos, 2012).…”

“…For example, the hypo-connectivity for the right supramarginal gyrus and the right middle frontal gyrus has been reported for patients with mild brain injury (Borich et al, 2015; Mayer et al, 2011). The lack of dynamic flexibility after traumatic brain injury has been linked to the observed hypo-connectivity of right frontal eye field (Muller & Virji-Babul, 2018).…”

Changes in resting‐state functional brain connectivity associated with head impacts over one men’s semi‐professional soccer season

“…Interestingly, overall, our findings are consistent with the current literature focused on resting-state fMRI changes in subjects with symptomatic concussion. Indeed a prominent feature of concussion is a diffuse increase in rs-FC (Borich et al, 2015;Caeyenberghs et al, 2017;Churchill et al, 2017;Czerniak et al, 2015;Militana et al, 2016;Muller & Virji-Babul, 2018;Newsome et al, 2016).…”

Recurrent Neural Network-based Acute Concussion Classifier using Raw Resting State EEG Data

“…Given that an LSTM-based network's main advantage is that it can identify temporal correlations and causal relations within a sequential data stream, we suspect that ConcNet may be picking up alterations in the temporal dynamics of brain due to mTBI. There is evidence showing that concussions do just this: By applying the sliding window analysis to resting state fMRI data, Muller and Virji-Babul [79] identified three distinct brain states and showed that while healthy adolescents switched dynamically between the three brain states and spend approximately the same amount of time in each brain state, concussed adolescents spent the majority of time in only one brain state. The possibility of using neural networks, like our LSTM-based ConcNet, to probe brain dynamics is an exciting new frontier that we are starting to explore.…”