Download This PaperReproducibility of Regional Structural and Functional MRI Networks in Cerebral Small Vessel Disease Compared to Age Matched and Stroke-Free Controls
31 Pages Posted: 5 Dec 2022
Abstract
Abnormalities in structural and functional MRI connectivity measures have been reported in cerebral small vessel disease (SVD). Previous research showed that whole-brain structural connectivity was highly reproducible in SVD patients, whole-brain functional connectivity showed low reproducibility. It remains unclear whether the lower reproducibility of functional networks reported in SVD is due to selective disruption of reproducibility in specific networks, or generalised in patients with SVD.In this case-control study 15 SVD and 10 age-matched control subjects were imaged twice with diffusion tensor imaging and resting state fMRI. Structural and functional connectivity matrices were constructed from this data and the default mode, fronto-parietal, limbic, salience, somatomotor and visual networks were extracted and the average connectivity between connections calculated and used to determine their reproducibility.Regional structural networks were more reproducible than functional networks, all structural networks showed ICC values >0.64 (except the salience network in SVD). The functional networks showed increased reproducibility in the controls compared to SVD with ICC values >0.7 for control subjects and <=0.5 for the SVD group. The default mode network showing the greatest reproducibility for both controls and patients.Reproducibility of functional networks was affected by disease status with lower reproducibility in SVD compared with controls.
Note:
Funding declaration: The study was funded by a project grant from Alzheimer's Research UK (ARUKPG2013-2; ARUK-EXT2015B-1). Hugh Markus is supported by a NIHR Senior
Investigator award. We acknowledge infrastructural support by the Cambridge
University Hospitals NIHR Comprehensive Biomedical Research Centre. Patrick Pflanz
was funded by EU Horizons 2020.
Conflict of Interests: The authors report no disclosures.
Ethical Approval: All subjects gave written informed consent, the study was approved by East of England - Cambridge East research ethics committee (reference: 14/EE/0014).
Keywords: MRI, Small vessel disease, Functional connectivity, Reproducibility
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