Network analysis shows decreased ipsilesional structural connectivity in glioma patients
Lucius S. Fekonja, Ziqian Wang, Alberto Cacciola, Timo Roine, Dogu Baran Aydogan, Darius Mewes, Sebastian Vellmer, Peter Vajkoczy, Thomas Picht
Abstract
Gliomas that infiltrate networks and systems, such as the motor system, often lead to substantial functional impairment in multiple systems. Network-based statistics (NBS) allow to assess local network differences and graph theoretical analyses enable investigation of global and local network properties. Here, we used network measures to characterize glioma-related decreases in structural connectivity by comparing the ipsi- with the contralesional hemispheres of patients and correlated findings with neurological assessment. We found that lesion location resulted in differential impairment of both short and long connectivity patterns. Network analysis showed reduced global and local efficiency in the ipsilesional hemisphere compared to the contralesional hemispheric networks, which reflect the impairment of information transfer across different regions of a network.