Frontiers in Neurology (Nov 2022)

Disrupted topological organization of the motor execution network in Wilson's disease

  • Long Zhu,
  • Hongxi Yin,
  • Yanxin Wang,
  • Wenming Yang,
  • Ting Dong,
  • Lei Xu,
  • Zhifeng Hou,
  • Qiao Shi,
  • Qi Shen,
  • Zicheng Lin,
  • Haixia Zhao,
  • Yaqin Xu,
  • Yanyan Chen,
  • Jingjing Wu,
  • Zheng Yu,
  • Man Wen,
  • Jiaying Huang

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3389/fneur.2022.1029669
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 13

Abstract

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ObjectiveThere are a number of symptoms associated with Wilson's disease (WD), including motor function damage. The neuropathological mechanisms underlying motor impairments in WD are, however, little understood. In this study, we explored changes in the motor execution network topology in WD.MethodsWe conducted resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) on 38 right-handed individuals, including 23 WD patients and 15 healthy controls of the same age. Based on graph theory, a motor execution network was constructed and analyzed. In this study, global, nodal, and edge topological properties of motor execution networks were compared.ResultsThe global topological organization of the motor execution network in the two groups did not differ significantly across groups. In the cerebellum, WD patients had a higher nodal degree. At the edge level, a cerebello-thalamo-striato-cortical circuit with altered functional connectivity strength in WD patients was observed. Specifically, the strength of the functional connections between the cerebellum and thalamus increased, whereas the cortical-thalamic, cortical-striatum and cortical-cerebellar connections exhibited a decrease in the strength of the functional connection.ConclusionThere is a disruption of the topology of the motor execution network in WD patients, which may be the potential basis for WD motor dysfunction and may provide important insights into neurobiological research related to WD motor dysfunction.

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