Abstract
The objective of this study was to investigate the alterations of brain activation and effective connectivity during motor imagery (MI) in complete spinal cord injury (CSCI) patients and to reveal a potential mechanism of MI in motor rehabilitation of CSCI patients. Fifteen CSCI patients and twenty healthy controls underwent the MI task-related fMRI scan, and the motor execution (ME) task only for healthy controls. The brain activation patterns of the two groups during MI, and CSCI patients during the MI task and healthy controls during the ME task were compared. Then the significantly changed brain activation areas in CSCI patients during the MI task were used as regions of interest for effective connectivity analysis, using a voxel-wise granger causality analysis (GCA) method. Compared with healthy controls, increased activations in left primary sensorimotor cortex and bilateral cerebellar lobules IV-VI were detected in CSCI patients during the MI task, and the activation level of these areas even equaled that of healthy controls during the ME task. Furthermore, GCA revealed decreased effective connectivity from sensorimotor related areas (primary sensorimotor cortex and cerebellar lobules IV-VI) to cognitive related areas (prefrontal cortex, precuneus, middle temporal gyrus, and inferior temporal gyrus) in CSCI patients. Our findings demonstrated that motor related brain areas can be functionally preserved and activated through MI after CSCI, it maybe the potential mechanism of MI in the motor rehabilitation of CSCI patients. In addition, Sensorimotor related brain regions have less influence on the cognitive related regions in CSCI patients during MI (The trial registration number: ChiCTR2000032793).
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Data availability
Research data is confidential given that we do not have participant approval to share data with outside investigators.
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Abbreviations
- ADF:
-
Ankle dorsiflexion
- ASIA:
-
American Spinal Injury Association
- EC:
-
Effective connectivity
- FC:
-
Functional connectivity
- fMRI:
-
Functional magnetic resonance imaging
- GCA:
-
Granger causality analysis
- HCs:
-
Healthy controls
- IFGtriang:
-
Triangular part of inferior frontal gyrus
- IPL:
-
Inferior parietal lobule
- ITG:
-
Inferior temporal gyrus
- KVIQ:
-
Kinesthetic and Visual Imagery Questionnaire
- M1:
-
Precentral gyrus
- ME:
-
Motor execution
- MI:
-
Motor imagery
- MOG:
-
Middle occipital gyrus
- MRI:
-
Magnetic resonance imaging
- MTG:
-
Middle temporal gyrus
- oMFC:
-
Orbital region of the medial prefrontal cortex
- PCL:
-
Paracentral lobule
- PSMC:
-
Primary sensorimotor cortex
- ROI:
-
Region of interest
- S1:
-
Postcentral gyrus
- SCI:
-
Spinal cord injury
- SMA:
-
Supplementary motor area
- SMG:
-
Supramarginal
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Acknowledgements
The authors thank the patients and healthy volunteers who participated in this study and generously gave their time.
Funding
This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 81871339 and 81271556), the Beijing Municipal Natural Science Foundation (No. 7113155), and the Science Foundation of Beijing Municipal Commission of Education (No. KM201210025013).
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Author contributions included conception (LW, NC), data collection, acquisition, and processing (LW, XJL, WMZ, XC, QC,YSH, LC, JR, JL), statistical analysis (LW, WQ), interpretation of results (LW, NC), drafting the manuscript work or revising it critically for important intellectual content (LW, NC, XJL, WMZ, WQ) and approval of final version to be published and agreement to be accountable for the integrity and accuracy of all aspects of the work (all authors).
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Wang, L., Li, X., Zheng, W. et al. Motor imagery evokes strengthened activation in sensorimotor areas and its effective connectivity related to cognitive regions in patients with complete spinal cord injury. Brain Imaging and Behavior 16, 2049–2060 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11682-022-00675-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11682-022-00675-0