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The volume and structural covariance network of thalamic nuclei in patients with Wilson’s disease: an investigation of the association with neurological impairment

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Abstract

Objective

This study aimed to examine the volumes of thalamic nuclei and the intrinsic thalamic network in patients with Wilson's disease (WDs), and to explore the correlation between these volumes and the severity of neurological symptoms.

Methods

A total of 61 WDs and 33 healthy controls (HCs) were included in the study. The volumes of 25 bilateral thalamic nuclei were measured using structural imaging analysis with Freesurfer, and the intrinsic thalamic network was evaluated through structural covariance network (SCN) analysis.

Results

The results indicated that multiple thalamic nuclei were smaller in WDs compared to HCs, including mediodorsal medial magnocellular (MDm), anterior ventral (AV), central median (CeM), centromedian (CM), lateral geniculate (LGN), limitans-suprageniculate (L-Sg), reuniens-medial ventral (MV), paracentral (Pc), parafascicular (Pf), paratenial (Pt), pulvinar anterior (PuA), pulvinar inferior (PuI), pulvinar medial (PuM), ventral anterior (VA), ventral anterior magnocellular (VAmc), ventral lateral anterior (VLa), ventral lateral posterior (VLp), ventromedial (VM), ventral posterolateral (VPL), and right middle dorsal intralaminar (MDI). The study also found a negative correlation between the UWDRS scores and the volume of the right MDm. The intrinsic thalamic network analysis showed abnormal topological properties in WDs, including increased mean local efficiency, modularity, normalized clustering coefficient, small-world index, and characteristic path length, and a corresponding decrease in mean node betweenness centrality. WDs with cerebral involvement had a lower modularity compared to HCs.

Conclusions

The findings suggest that the majority of thalamic nuclei in WDs exhibit significant volume reduction, and the atrophy of the right MDm is closely related to the severity of neurological symptoms. The intrinsic thalamic network in WDs demonstrated abnormal topological properties, indicating a close relationship with neurological impairment.

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Data availability

The data supporting the findings of this study can be obtained upon request from the corresponding author, Wenbin Hu.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Zonagxian Yao and Congming Xu for their assistance in data collecting.

Funding

This work was supported by 2022QNJJ04(Kunshan Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital Youth Science and Technology Fund) and 2021sfyle01 (Anhui University of Chinese Medicine).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Kunshan Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Suzhou, Jiangsu, China

    Bing Zhang, Guang Yang, Chunyang Xu, Rong Zhang, Xiaogang He & Wenbin Hu

  2. Affiliated Hospital of Institute of Neurology, Anhui University of Chinese Medicine, Hefei, China

    Wenbin Hu

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  1. Bing Zhang
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  2. Guang Yang
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  3. Chunyang Xu
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  4. Rong Zhang
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  5. Xiaogang He
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Contributions

Bing Zhang and Guang Yang contributed to the conception and organization of the research project. Bing Zhang contributed to the execution of the research project. Bing zhang, Rong Zhang, Chunyang Xu performed the statistical analysis and drafted the manuscript. Wenbin Hu and Xiaogang He critically reviewed the manuscript for important intellectual content. Wenbin Hu provided funding. All authors approved the final version of the manuscript before submission.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Wenbin Hu.

Ethics declarations

Ethical approval

The study received approval from all authors. It was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of, Helsinki, and approved by the Ethics Committee of the Affiliated Hospital of the Institute of Neurology, Anhui University of Chinese Medicine (Ethics Approval No. 2021-Lun-Zi (13), translated from Chinese).

Informed consent

Participants were informed of the program and they put their signature on informed consent form.

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All authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Co-first authorship: Bing Zhang and Guang Yang.

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Zhang, B., Yang, G., Xu, C. et al. The volume and structural covariance network of thalamic nuclei in patients with Wilson’s disease: an investigation of the association with neurological impairment. Neurol Sci 45, 2063–2073 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10072-023-07245-2

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