Widespread temporo-occipital lobe dysfunction in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

Recent studies suggest that amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD) lie on a single clinical continuum. However, previous neuroimaging studies have found only limited involvement of temporal lobe regions in ALS. To better delineate possible temporal lobe involvement in...

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Published inScientific reports Vol. 7; no. 1; p. 40252
Main Authors Loewe, Kristian, Machts, Judith, Kaufmann, Jörn, Petri, Susanne, Heinze, Hans-Jochen, Borgelt, Christian, Harris, Joseph Allen, Vielhaber, Stefan, Schoenfeld, Mircea Ariel
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published London Nature Publishing Group UK 09.01.2017
Nature Publishing Group
Subjects
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Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis - physiopathology
Brain
Brain Mapping
Dementia disorders
Female
Frontotemporal dementia
Functional magnetic resonance imaging
Humanities and Social Sciences
Humans
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Male
Middle Aged
Motor task performance
multidisciplinary
Neural networks
Neurodegeneration
Neuroimaging
Neuropsychological Tests
Occipital lobe
Occipital Lobe - physiopathology
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Temporal lobe
Temporal Lobe - physiopathology
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Summary:Recent studies suggest that amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD) lie on a single clinical continuum. However, previous neuroimaging studies have found only limited involvement of temporal lobe regions in ALS. To better delineate possible temporal lobe involvement in ALS, the present study aimed to examine changes in functional connectivity across the whole brain, particularly with regard to extra-motor regions, in a group of 64 non-demented ALS patients and 38 healthy controls. To assess between-group differences in connectivity, we computed edge-level statistics across subject-specific graphs derived from resting-state functional MRI data. In addition to expected ALS-related decreases in functional connectivity in motor-related areas, we observed extensive changes in connectivity across the temporo-occipital cortex. Although ALS patients with comorbid FTD were deliberately excluded from this study, the pattern of connectivity alterations closely resembles patterns of cerebral degeneration typically seen in FTD. This evidence for subclinical temporal dysfunction supports the idea of a common pathology in ALS and FTD.
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These authors contributed equally to this work.
ISSN:2045-2322
2045-2322
DOI:10.1038/srep40252