Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2012;7(12):e52727.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0052727. Epub 2012 Dec 20.

Patterns in cortical connectivity for determining outcomes in hand function after subcortical stroke

Dazhi Yin  1 , Fan Song, Dongrong Xu, Bradley S Peterson, Limin Sun, Weiwei Men, Xu Yan, Mingxia Fan
Affiliations

Patterns in cortical connectivity for determining outcomes in hand function after subcortical stroke

Dazhi Yin et al. PLoS One. 2012.

Abstract

Background and purpose: Previous studies have noted changes in resting-state functional connectivity during motor recovery following stroke. However, these studies always uncover various patterns of motor recovery. Moreover, subgroups of stroke patients with different outcomes in hand function have rarely been studied.

Materials and methods: We selected 24 patients who had a subcortical stroke in the left motor pathway and displayed only motor deficits. The patients were divided into two subgroups: completely paralyzed hands (CPH) (12 patients) and partially paralyzed hands (PPH) (12 patients). Twenty-four healthy controls (HC) were also recruited. We performed functional connectivity analysis in both the ipsilesional and contralesional primary motor cortex (M1) to explore the differences in the patterns between each pair of the three diagnostic groups.

Results: Compared with the HC, the PPH group displays reduced connectivity of both the ipsilesional and contralesional M1 with bilateral prefrontal gyrus and contralesional cerebellum posterior lobe. The connectivity of both the ipsilesional and contralesional M1 with contralateral primary sensorimotor cortex was reduced in the CPH group. Additionally, the connectivity of the ipsilesional M1 with contralesional postcentral gyrus, superior parietal lobule and ipsilesional inferior parietal lobule was reduced in the CPH group compared with the PPH group. Moreover, the connectivity of these regions was positively correlated with the Fugl-Meyer Assessment scores (hand+wrist) across all stroke patients.

Conclusions: Patterns in cortical connectivity may serve as a potential biomarker for the neural substratum associated with outcomes in hand function after subcortical stroke.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Seed regions of interest (ROIs) (red) for functional connectivity.
A: Ipsilesional M1, MNI coordinate = −38, −22, 56, radius = 6 mm; B: Contralesional M1, MNI coordinate = 38, −22, 56, radius = 6 mm.
Figure 2
Figure 2. Significant differences in the functional connectivity of ipsilesional M1 between each pair of the three diagnostic groups.
A: CPH versus PPH; B: PPH versus HC; C: CPH versus HC. The threshold was set at a combined cutoff value of p<0.01 and a minimum cluster size of 486 mm3 (18 voxels) to yield a corrected threshold of p<0.05 (AlphaSim corrected). Clusters with significant differences were overlapped on render views (posterior-anterior (row 1), right-left (row 2), inferior-superior (row 3)). Color scale = t values.
Figure 3
Figure 3. Significant differences in functional connectivity of contralesional M1 between each pair of the three diagnostic groups.
A: CPH versus PPH; B: PPH versus HC; C: CPH versus HC. The threshold was set at a combined cutoff value of p<0.01 and a minimum cluster size of 486 mm3 (18 voxels) to yield a corrected threshold of p<0.05 (AlphaSim corrected). Clusters with significant differences were overlapped on render views (posterior-anterior (row 1), right-left (row 2), inferior-superior (row 3)). Color scale = t values.
Figure 4
Figure 4. Functional connectivity of the ipsilesional M1 positive correlation with Fugl-Meyer Assessment (FMA) scores (hand+wrist).
IPL: inferior parietal lobule; PCG: postcentral gyrus; SPL: superior parietal lobule; FC: functional connectivity; HW: hand+wrist.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Duncan PW, Goldstein LB, Matchar D, Divine GW, Feussner J (1992) Measurement of motor recovery after stroke. Outcome assessment and sample size requirements. Stroke 23: 1084–1089. - PubMed
    1. Chollet F, DiPiero V, Wise RJ, Brooks DJ, Dolan RJ, et al. (1991) The functional anatomy of motor recovery after stroke in humans: a study with positron emission tomography. Ann Neurol 29: 63–71. - PubMed
    1. Cao Y, D'Olhaberriague L, Vikingstad EM, Levine SR, Welch KM (1998) Pilot study of functional MRI to assess cerebral activation of motor function after poststroke hemiparesis. Stroke 29: 112–122. - PubMed
    1. Marshall RS, Perera GM, Lazar RM, Krakauer JW, Constantine RC, et al. (2000) Evolution of cortical activation during recovery from corticospinal tract infarction. Stroke 31: 656–661. - PubMed
    1. Weiller C, Ramsay SC, Wise RJ, Friston KJ, Frackowiak RS (1993) Individual patterns of functional reorganization in the human cerebral cortex after capsular infarction. Ann Neurol 33: 181–189. - PubMed

Publication types

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the Excellent Young Teachers Program of Shanghai Medical College of Fudan University (Grant No.124) and a grant from the Shanghai Commission of Science and Technology (Grant No. 10440710200). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
-