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
. 2022 Jul 25:14:905453.
doi: 10.3389/fnagi.2022.905453. eCollection 2022.

Altered functional connectivity within default mode network after rupture of anterior communicating artery aneurysm

Fuxiang Chen  1   2   3 , Yaqing Kang  4 , Ting Yu  1   2   3 , Yuanxiang Lin  1   2   3 , Linsun Dai  1   2   3 , Lianghong Yu  1   2   3 , Dengliang Wang  1   2   3 , Xi Sun  5 , Dezhi Kang  1   2   3
Affiliations

Altered functional connectivity within default mode network after rupture of anterior communicating artery aneurysm

Fuxiang Chen et al. Front Aging Neurosci. .

Abstract

Background: Rupture of anterior communicating artery (ACoA) aneurysm often leads to cognitive impairment, especially memory complaints. The medial superior frontal gyrus (SFGmed), a node of the default mode network (DMN), has been extensively revealed to participate in various cognitive processes. However, the functional connectivity (FC) characteristics of SFGmed and its relationship with cognitive performance remain unknown after the rupture of the ACoA aneurysm.

Methods: Resting-state functional MRI (fMRI) and cognitive assessment were acquired in 27 eligible patients and 20 controls. Seed-based FC between unilateral SFGmed and the rest of the brain was calculated separately, and then compared their intensity differences between the two groups. Furthermore, we analyzed the correlation between abnormal FC and cognitive function in patients with ruptured ACoA aneurysm.

Results: Cognitive impairment was confirmed in 51.9% of the patients. Compared with the controls, patients suffering from ruptured ACoA aneurysm exhibited a similar FC decline between each side of SFGmed and predominant nodes within DMN, including the precuneus, angular gyrus, cingulate cortex, left hippocampus, left amygdala, left temporal pole (TPO), and left medial orbitofrontal cortex (mOFC). Besides, significantly decreased FC of left SFGmed and left insula, right middle temporal gyrus (MTG), as well as right mOFC, were also found. In addition, only enhanced insular connectivity with right SFGmed was determined, whereas increased FC of the left SFGmed was not observed. Correlation analyses showed that lower total cognitive performance or stronger subjective memory complaints were related to reduced connectivity in the SFGmed and several cortical regions such as the angular gyrus and middle cingulate cortex (MCC).

Conclusion: Our results suggest that patients with ruptured ACoA aneurysm exist long-term cognitive impairment and intrinsic hypoconnectivity of cognition-related brain regions within DMN. Deactivation of DMN may be a potential neural mechanism leading to cognitive deficits in these patients.

Keywords: anterior communicating artery aneurysm; cognitive impairment; default mode network; functional connectivity; resting-state fMRI; subarachnoid hemorrhage.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Left-side SFGmed-based resting-state functional connectivity analysis between patients with ruptured ACoA aneurysm and healthy controls. Results were displayed in 2D (left) and 3D (right), respectively. The color bar represents T-scores. Brain regions labeling with color indicate decreased functional connectivity in patients with ruptured ACoA aneurysm as compared to the healthy controls. The threshold for displaying was set to p < 0.05, false discovery rate corrected, and cluster size > 50. Details of these color regions are given in Table 2. SFGmed, medial superior frontal gyrus; ACoA, anterior communicating artery; L, left; R, right.
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Right-side SFGmed-based resting-state functional connectivity analysis between patients with ruptured ACoA aneurysm and healthy controls. Results were represented in 2D (left) and 3D (right), respectively. The color bar represents T-scores. Brain regions labeling with color indicate decreased (top panel) or increased functional connectivity (bottom panel) in patients with ruptured ACoA aneurysm as compared to the healthy controls. The threshold for displaying was set to p < 0.05, false discovery rate corrected, and cluster size > 50. Details of these color regions are given in Table 2. SFGmed, medial superior frontal gyrus; ACoA, anterior communicating artery; L, left; R, right.
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
Correlations between functional connectivity strength and cognitive performance in patients with ruptured ACoA aneurysm. Positive correlations between the MoCA scores and left SFGmed-left ACC (A), right SFGmed-right MCC (B), as well as right SFGmed-left MCC (C) connectivity strength were discovered in patients with ruptured ACoA aneurysm. Negative correlations between the SMCQ scores and left SFGmed-right AG (D), right SFGmed-right AG (E), left SFGmed-right MCC (F), right SFGmed-right MCC (G), and right SFGmed-left MCC (H) connectivity strength were displayed in patients with ruptured ACoA aneurysm. ACoA, anterior communicating artery; SFGmed, medial superior frontal gyrus; AG, angular gyrus; MoCA, Montreal Cognitive Assessment; ACC, anterior cingulate cortex; MCC, middle cingulate cortex; SMCQ, Subjective Memory Complaints Questionnaire.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Almairac F., Deverdun J., Cochereau J., Coget A., Lemaitre A., Moritz-Gasser S., et al. (2021). Homotopic redistribution of functional connectivity in insula-centered diffuse low-grade glioma. Neuroimage Clin. 29:102571. 10.1016/j.nicl.2021.102571 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Batista A., Bazán P., Conforto A., Martin M., Simon S., Hampstead B., et al. (2019). Effects of mnemonic strategy training on brain activity and cognitive functioning of left-hemisphere ischemic stroke patients. Neural Plast. 2019:4172569. 10.1155/2019/4172569 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Beeckmans K., Crunelle C., Van den Bossche J., Dierckx E., Michiels K., Vancoillie P., et al. (2020). Cognitive outcome after surgical clipping versus endovascular coiling in patients with subarachnoid hemorrhage due to ruptured anterior communicating artery aneurysm. Acta Neurol. Belg. 120 123–132. - PubMed
    1. Chao-Gan Y., Yu-Feng Z. (2010). DPARSF: a matlab toolbox for “Pipeline” data analysis of resting-state fMRI. Front. Syst. Neurosci. 4:13. 10.3389/fnsys.2010.00013 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Clancy K., Andrzejewski J., You Y., Rosenberg J., Ding M., Li W. (2022). Transcranial stimulation of alpha oscillations up-regulates the default mode network. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 119:e2110868119. 10.1073/pnas.2110868119 - DOI - PMC - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources