肌萎缩侧索硬化症(ALS)是一种特发性,致命的,和以运动神经元退化为特征的快速进行性神经退行性疾病。ALS患者经常经历初始误诊或诊断延迟,这是由于目前无法获得有效的生物标志物。由于言语受损在ALS中是典型的,我们假设健康和ALS参与者在言语任务中的功能差异可以通过皮层模式变化来解释,从而导致ALS的神经生物标志物的鉴定。在这项试点研究中,我们收集了3名早期诊断的ALS患者和3名健康对照者在想象(隐蔽)和公开言语任务期间的脑磁图(MEG)记录.首先,我们计算传感器相关性,与健康对照组相比,说话者与ALS的相关性更大。第二,我们比较了两组之间典型频段中MEG信号的功率,这表明ALS参与者的β带差异更大。第三,我们评估了功能连通性的差异,与健康对照相比,ALS的β带连通性更高。最后,我们进行了单试验分类,这导致了beta波段功能的最高性能(98%)。这些发现在试验中是一致的,短语,以及想象和公开演讲任务的参与者。我们的初步结果表明,语音诱发的β振荡可能是诊断ALS的潜在神经生物标志物。据我们所知,这是单试验神经信号检测ALS的首次证明.
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is an idiopathic, fatal, and fast-progressive neurodegenerative disease characterized by the degeneration of motor neurons. ALS patients often experience an initial misdiagnosis or a diagnostic delay due to the current unavailability of an efficient biomarker. Since impaired speech is typical in ALS, we hypothesized that functional differences between healthy and ALS participants during speech tasks can be explained by cortical pattern changes, thereby leading to the identification of a neural biomarker for ALS. In this pilot study, we collected
magnetoencephalography (MEG) recordings from three early-diagnosed patients with ALS and three healthy controls during imagined (covert) and overt speech tasks. First, we computed sensor correlations, which showed greater correlations for speakers with ALS than healthy controls. Second, we compared the power of the MEG signals in canonical bands between the two groups, which showed greater dissimilarity in the beta band for ALS participants. Third, we assessed differences in functional connectivity, which showed greater beta band connectivity for ALS than healthy controls. Finally, we performed single-trial classification, which resulted in highest performance with beta band features (∼ 98%). These findings were consistent across trials, phrases, and participants for both imagined and overt speech tasks. Our preliminary results indicate that speech-evoked beta oscillations could be a potential neural biomarker for diagnosing ALS. To our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of the detection of ALS from single-trial neural signals.