Abstract
Fragile X syndrome (FXS) is one of the most common inherited causes of intellectual disabilities. While there is currently no cure for FXS, EEG is considered an important method to investigate the pathophysiology and evaluate behavioral and cognitive treatments. We conducted EEG microstate analysis to investigate resting brain dynamics in FXS participants. Resting-state recordings from 70 FXS participants and 71 chronological age-matched typically developing control (TDC) participants were used to derive microstates via modified k-means clustering. The occurrence, mean global field power (GFP), and global explained variance (GEV) of microstate C were significantly higher in the FXS group compared to the TDC group. The mean GFP was significantly negatively correlated with non-verbal IQ (NVIQ) in the FXS group, where lower NVIQ scores were associated with greater GFP. In addition, the occurrence, mean duration, mean GFP, and GEV of microstate D were significantly greater in the FXS group than the TDC group. The mean GFP and occurrence of microstate D were also correlated with individual alpha frequencies in the FXS group, where lower IAF frequencies accompanied greater microstate GFP and occurrence. Alterations in microstates C and D may be related to the two well-established cognitive characteristics of FXS, intellectual disabilities and attention impairments, suggesting that microstate parameters could serve as markers to study cognitive impairments and evaluate treatment outcomes in this population. Slowing of the alpha peak frequency and its correlation to microstate D parameters may suggest changes in thalamocortical dynamics in FXS, which could be specifically related to attention control. (250 words)
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Data Availability
The preprocessed EEG data that were used for the current study are publically available at https://zenodo.org/record/7149276.
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The authors CAE and EVP received support from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Fragile X Centers (U54HD104461) while working on this manuscript.
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YT conceptualized the study, performed data analysis, wrote the first draft of the manuscript, and edited the manuscript. AZ contributed to the data analysis and edited the manuscript. CAE and EVP conducted a study that generated the original data that were previously published and used in the current study. CAE and EVP also edited the manuscript. All authors reviewed and approved the manuscript.
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Takarae, Y., Zanesco, A., Erickson, C.A. et al. EEG Microstates as Markers for Cognitive Impairments in Fragile X Syndrome. Brain Topogr 37, 432–446 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10548-023-01009-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10548-023-01009-z