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Mild traumatic brain injury impairs the coordination of intrinsic and motor-related neural dynamics

Authors :
Gerard Gooding-Williams
Benjamin T. Dunkley
Lauren E. Gascoyne
John W Scadding
Rouzbeh Zamyadi
Jing Zhang
Matthew J. Brookes
Nikos Evangelou
Zahra Emami
Lukas Rier
Paul L. Furlong
Sergiu Mocanu
Mark W. Woolrich
Zelekha A. Seedat
Chris Allen
Source :
NeuroImage : Clinical, NeuroImage: Clinical, Vol 32, Iss, Pp 102841-(2021)
Publication Year :
2021
Publisher :
Elsevier, 2021.

Abstract

Highlights • MTBI is poorly understood and lacks objective diagnostic and prognostic tools. • Abnormal neural oscillations are found in subjects with a history of mTBI. • We identify transient bursts in MEG data using a Hidden Markov Model. • We explain a deficit in beta connectivity and power in terms of transient bursts. • Data-driven feature selection identifies symptom-relevant functional connections.<br />Mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) poses a considerable burden on healthcare systems. Whilst most patients recover quickly, a significant number suffer from sequelae that are not accompanied by measurable structural damage. Understanding the neural underpinnings of these debilitating effects and developing a means to detect injury, would address an important unmet clinical need. It could inform interventions and help predict prognosis. Magnetoencephalography (MEG) affords excellent sensitivity in probing neural function and presents significant promise for assessing mTBI, with abnormal neural oscillations being a potential specific biomarker. However, growing evidence suggests that neural dynamics are (at least in part) driven by transient, pan-spectral bursting and in this paper, we employ this model to investigate mTBI. We applied a Hidden Markov Model to MEG data recorded during resting state and a motor task and show that previous findings of diminished intrinsic beta amplitude in individuals with mTBI are largely due to the reduced beta band spectral content of bursts, and that diminished beta connectivity results from a loss in the temporal coincidence of burst states. In a motor task, mTBI results in diminished burst amplitude, altered modulation of burst probability during movement, and a loss in connectivity in motor networks. These results suggest that, mechanistically, mTBI disrupts the structural framework underlying neural synchrony, which impairs network function. Whilst the damage may be too subtle for structural imaging to see, the functional consequences are detectable and persist after injury. Our work shows that mTBI impairs the dynamic coordination of neural network activity and proposes a potent new method for understanding mTBI.

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
22131582
Volume :
32
Database :
OpenAIRE
Journal :
NeuroImage : Clinical
Accession number :
edsair.doi.dedup.....f7f4af19f43930c1d2f4b5cab5d81a12