Hubs of brain functional networks are radically reorganized in comatose patients
Hubs of brain functional networks are radically reorganized in comatose patients
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DOI：
10.1073/pnas.1208933109
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发表时间：
2012-12-11
影响因子：
11.1
通讯作者：
Bullmore, Edward T.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Achard, Sophie;Delon-Martin, Chantal;Bullmore, Edward T.
人脑网络与许多其他复杂系统具有共同的拓扑特性，引发了以下问题：脑网络组织的哪些方面对于大脑独特的功能特性（例如意识）至关重要？为了解决这个问题，我们使用图论方法来探索从 17 名意识严重受损患者和 20 名健康志愿者获得的静息态功能 MRI 数据中的脑网络拓扑。我们发现许多全局网络特性在昏迷患者中是保守的。具体来说，患者组的全局效率、聚类、小世界、模块化或程度分布没有显着异常。然而，在每一位患者中，我们都发现了高度或高效“枢纽”节点彻底重组的证据。作为健康大脑网络枢纽的皮质区域通常已成为昏迷大脑网络的非枢纽，反之亦然。这些结果表明，复杂大脑网络的整体拓扑特性可能在极其不同的临床条件下保持稳态保守，并且意识可能取决于人脑网络中枢节点的解剖位置。
Human brain networks have topological properties in common with many other complex systems, prompting the following question: what aspects of brain network organization are critical for distinctive functional properties of the brain, such as consciousness? To address this question, we used graph theoretical methods to explore brain network topology in resting state functional MRI data acquired from 17 patients with severely impaired consciousness and 20 healthy volunteers. We found that many global network properties were conserved in comatose patients. Specifically, there was no significant abnormality of global efficiency, clustering, small-worldness, modularity, or degree distribution in the patient group. However, in every patient, we found evidence for a radical reorganization of high degree or highly efficient "hub" nodes. Cortical regions that were hubs of healthy brain networks had typically become nonhubs of comatose brain networks and vice versa. These results indicate that global topological properties of complex brain networks may be homeostatically conserved under extremely different clinical conditions and that consciousness likely depends on the anatomical location of hub nodes in human brain networks.