TY - JOUR
T1 - Cognitive Slowing in Gulf War Illness Predicts Executive Network Hyperconnectivity
T2 - Study in a Population-Representative Sample
AU - Turner, Monroe P.
AU - Hubbard, Nicholas A.
AU - Himes, Lyndahl M.
AU - Faghihahmadabadi, Shawheen
AU - Hutchison, Joanna L.
AU - Bennett, Ilana J.
AU - Motes, Michael A.
AU - Haley, Robert W
AU - Rypma, Bart
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported in part by IDIQ contract VA549-P-0027 (to R. W. Haley), awarded by the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Dallas, TX; the National Institutes of Health (Grant 1R01AG029523 to B. Rypma), and the Friends of Brain Health (to N. A. Hubbard); U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command grant number DAMD17-01-1-0741 (to R. W. Haley); and Grant Number UL1RR024982-05, titled North and Central Texas Clinical and Translational Science Initiative, from the National Center for Research Resources (NCRR), a component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and NIH Roadmap for Medical Research. The content does not necessarily reflect the position or the policy of the Federal government or the sponsoring agencies, and no official endorsement should be inferred.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 The Authors
PY - 2016
Y1 - 2016
N2 - Cognitive slowing is a prevalent symptom observed in Gulf War Illness (GWI). The present study assessed the extent to which functional connectivity between dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and other task-relevant brain regions was predictive of GWI-related cognitive slowing. GWI patients (n = 54) and healthy veteran controls (n = 29) were assessed on performance of a processing speed task (the Digit Symbol Substitution Task; DSST) while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). GWI patients were slower on the DSST relative to controls. Bilateral DLPFC connectivity with task-relevant nodes was altered in GWI patients compared to healthy controls during DSST performance. Moreover, hyperconnectivity in these networks predicted GWI-related increases in reaction time on the DSST, whereas hypoconnectivity did not. These results suggest that GWI-related cognitive slowing reflects reduced efficiency in cortical networks.
AB - Cognitive slowing is a prevalent symptom observed in Gulf War Illness (GWI). The present study assessed the extent to which functional connectivity between dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and other task-relevant brain regions was predictive of GWI-related cognitive slowing. GWI patients (n = 54) and healthy veteran controls (n = 29) were assessed on performance of a processing speed task (the Digit Symbol Substitution Task; DSST) while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). GWI patients were slower on the DSST relative to controls. Bilateral DLPFC connectivity with task-relevant nodes was altered in GWI patients compared to healthy controls during DSST performance. Moreover, hyperconnectivity in these networks predicted GWI-related increases in reaction time on the DSST, whereas hypoconnectivity did not. These results suggest that GWI-related cognitive slowing reflects reduced efficiency in cortical networks.
KW - Gulf War Illness
KW - cognitive efficiency
KW - dorsolateral prefrontal cortex
KW - functional connectivity
KW - functional magnetic resonance imaging
KW - processing speed
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U2 - 10.1016/j.nicl.2016.08.022
DO - 10.1016/j.nicl.2016.08.022
M3 - Article
C2 - 27672557
AN - SCOPUS:84987923175
SN - 2213-1582
VL - 12
SP - 535
EP - 541
JO - NeuroImage: Clinical
JF - NeuroImage: Clinical
ER -