If your doctors don't understand how the white matter network is built and connects how will they rebuild a damaged one? And yes I do expect my doctors to know a lot more than I do.
http://www.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fnhum.2013.00716/full?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Neuroscience-w46-2013
Zhang Chen1,
Min Liu1,
Donald W. Gross2 and
Christian Beaulieu1*
- 1Department of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada
- 2Division of Neurology, Department of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada
Understanding the development of human brain organization is critical
for gaining insight into how the enhancement of cognitive processes is
related to the fine-tuning of the brain network. However, the
developmental trajectory of the large-scale white matter (WM) network is
not fully understood. Here, using graph theory, we examine
developmental changes in the organization of WM networks in 180
typically-developing participants. WM networks were constructed using
whole brain tractography and 78 cortical regions of interest were
extracted from each participant. The subjects were first divided into 5
equal sample size (
n = 36) groups (early childhood: 6.0–9.7
years; late childhood: 9.8–12.7 years; adolescence: 12.9–17.5 years;
young adult: 17.6–21.8 years; adult: 21.9–29.6 years). Most prominent
changes in the topological properties of developing brain networks occur
at late childhood and adolescence. During late childhood period, the
structural brain network showed significant increase in the global
efficiency but decrease in modularity, suggesting a shift of topological
organization toward a more randomized configuration. However, while
preserving most topological features, there was a significant increase
in the local efficiency at adolescence, suggesting the dynamic process
of rewiring and rebalancing brain connections at different growth
stages. In addition, several pivotal hubs were identified that are vital
for the global coordination of information flow over the whole brain
network across all age groups. Significant increases of nodal efficiency
were present in several regions such as precuneus at late childhood.
Finally, a stable and functionally/anatomically related modular
organization was identified throughout the development of the WM
network. This study used network analysis to elucidate the topological
changes in brain maturation, paving the way for developing novel methods
for analyzing disrupted brain connectivity in neurodevelopmental
disorders.
No comments:
Post a Comment