{Reference Type}: Journal Article
{Title}: Profiling functional networks identify activation of corticostriatal connectivity in ET patients after MRgFUS thalamotomy.
{Author}: Lin J;Kang X;Zhou J;Zhang D;Hu J;Lu H;Pan L;Lou X;
{Journal}: Neuroimage Clin
{Volume}: 42
{Issue}: 0
{Year}: 2024 Apr 15
{Factor}: 4.891
{DOI}: 10.1016/j.nicl.2024.103605
{Abstract}: <B>BACKGROUND: </B>MR-guided focused ultrasound (MRgFUS) thalamotomy is a novel and effective treatment for medication-refractory tremor in essential tremor (ET), but how the brain responds to this deliberate lesion is not clear.<BR><B>OBJECTIVE: </B>The current study aimed to evaluate the immediate and longitudinal alterations of functional networks after MRgFUS thalamotomy.<BR><B>METHODS: </B>We retrospectively obtained preoperative and postoperative 30-day, 90-day, and 180-day data of 31 ET patients subjected with MRgFUS thalamotomy from 2018 to 2020. Their archived resting-state functional MRI data were used for functional network comparison as well as graph-theory metrics analysis. Both partial least squares (PLS) regression and linear regression were conducted to associate functional features to tremor symptoms.<BR><B>RESULTS: </B>MRgFUS thalamotomy dramatically abolished tremors, while global functional network only sustained immediate fluctuation within one week after the surgery. Network-based statistics have identified a long-term enhanced corticostriatal subnetwork by comparison between 180-day and preoperative data (P = 0.019). Within this subnetwork, network degree, global efficiency and transitivity were significantly recovered in ET patients right after MRgFUS thalamotomy compared to the pre-operative timepoint (P < 0.05), as well as hemisphere lateralization (P < 0.001). The PLS main component significantly accounted for 33.68 % and 34.16 % of the total variances of hand tremor score and clinical rating scale for tremor (CRST)-total score (P = 0.037 and 0.027). Network transitivity of this subnetwork could serve as a reliable biomarker for hand tremor score control prediction at 180-day after the surgery (β = 2.94, P = 0.03).<BR><B>CONCLUSIONS: </B>MRgFUS thalamotomy promoted corticostriatal connectivity activation correlated with tremor improvement in ET patient after MRgFUS thalamotomy.