Altered caudate connectivity is associated with executive dysfunction after traumatic brain injury
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Traumatic brain injury often produces executive dysfunction. This characteristic cognitive impairment often causes long-term problems with behaviour and personality. Frontal lobe injuries are associated with executive dysfunction, but it is unclear how these injuries relate to corticostriatal interactions that are known to play an important role in behavioural control. We hypothesized that executive dysfunction after traumatic brain injury would be associated with abnormal corticostriatal interactions, a question that has not previously been investigated. We used structural and functional MRI measures of connectivity to investigate this. Corticostriatal functional connectivity in healthy individuals was initially defined using a data-driven approach. A constrained independent component analysis approach was applied in 100 healthy adult dataset from the Human Connectome Project. Diffusion tractography was also performed to generate white matter tracts. The output of this analysis was used to compare corticostriatal functional connectivity and structural integrity between groups of 42 patients with traumatic brain injury and 21 age-matched controls. Subdivisions of the caudate and putamen had distinct patterns of functional connectivity. Traumatic brain injury patients showed disruption to functional connectivity between the caudate and a distributed set of cortical regions, including the anterior cingulate cortex. Cognitive impairments in the patients were mainly seen in processing speed and executive function, as well as increased levels of apathy and fatigue. Abnormalities of caudate functional connectivity correlated with these cognitive impairments, with reductions in right caudate connectivity associated with increased executive dysfunction, information processing speed and memory impairment. Structural connectivity, measured using diffusion tensor imaging between the caudate and anterior cingulate cortex was impaired and this also correlated with measures of executive dysfunction. We show for the first time that altered subcortical connectivity is associated with large-scale network disruption in traumatic brain injury and that this disruption is related to the cognitive impairments seen in these patients.
Date Issued
2017-11-23
Date Acceptance
2017-09-25
Citation
Brain, 2017, 141 (1), pp.148-164
ISSN
1460-2156
Publisher
Oxford University Press (OUP)
Start Page
148
End Page
164
Journal / Book Title
Brain
Volume
141
Issue
1
Copyright Statement
© The Author (2017). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Guarantors of Brain.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse,
distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse,
distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
License URL
Sponsor
The Royal British Legion
Guarantors of Brain
National Institute for Health Research
Royal College Of Surgeons Of England
National Institute for Health Research
Grant Number
Centre for Blast Injury Studie
N/A
NIHR-RP-011-048
N/A
RDLRN (RCF - 27)
Subjects
anterior cingulate cortex
corticostriatal
executive dysfunction
functional connectivity
traumatic brain injury
11 Medical And Health Sciences
17 Psychology And Cognitive Sciences
Neurology & Neurosurgery
Publication Status
Published