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. 2021:32:102742.
doi: 10.1016/j.nicl.2021.102742. Epub 2021 Jun 26.

Altered hippocampal functional connectivity patterns in patients with cognitive impairments following ischaemic stroke: A resting-state fMRI study

JeYoung Jung  1 , Rosanna Laverick  2 , Kurdow Nader  3 , Thomas Brown  4 , Haley Morris  4 , Martin Wilson  2 , Dorothee P Auer  5 , Pia Rotshtein  6 , Akram A Hosseini  7
Affiliations

Altered hippocampal functional connectivity patterns in patients with cognitive impairments following ischaemic stroke: A resting-state fMRI study

JeYoung Jung et al. Neuroimage Clin. 2021.

Abstract

Background: Ischemic stroke with cognitive impairment is a considerable risk factor for developing dementia. Identifying imaging markers of cognitive impairment following ischemic stroke will help to develop prevention strategies against post-stroke dementia.

Methods: We investigated the hippocampal functional connectivity (FC) pattern following ischemic stroke, using resting-state fMRI (rs-fMRI). Thirty-three cognitively impaired patients after ischemic stroke and sixteen age-matched controls with no known history of neurological disorder were recruited for the study. No patient had a direct ischaemic insult to hippocampus on the examination of brain imaging. Seven subfields of hippocampus were used as seeds region for FC analyses.

Results: Across all hippocampal subfields, FC with the inferior parietal lobule was reduced in stroke patients as compared with healthy controls. This decreased FC included both supramarginal gyrus and angular gyrus. The FC of hippocampal subfields with cerebellum was increased. Importantly, the degree of the altered FC between hippocampal subfields and inferior parietal lobule was associated with their impaired memory function.

Conclusion: Our results demonstrated that decreased hippocampal-inferior parietal lobule connectivity was associated with cognitive impairment in patients with ischemic stroke. These findings provide novel insights into the role of hippocampus in cognitive impairment following ischemic stroke.

Keywords: Cognitive impairment; Functional connectivity; Hippocampus; Ischemic stroke; Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
The overlapping lesion maps.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
The subfields of hippocampus.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
The results of functional connectivity pattern of hippocampal subfields.
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
The relationship between the functional connectivity of hippocampal subfields and memory function in the patients. aSMG: anterior supramarginal gyrus, pSMG: posterior supramarginal gyrus, AG: angular gyrus, SPL: superior parietal lobe.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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