Abstract
Background: Considerable evidence indicates that the functional connectome of the healthy human brain is highly stable, analogous to a fingerprint. Objective: We investigated the stability of functional connectivity across tasks and sessions in a cohort of individuals with chronic stroke using a supervised machine learning approach. Methods: Twelve individuals with chronic stroke underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) seven times over 18 weeks. The middle 6 weeks consisted of intensive aphasia therapy. We collected fMRI data during rest and performance of 2 tasks. We calculated functional connectivity metrics for each imaging run, then applied a support vector machine to classify data on the basis of participant, task, and time point (pre- or posttherapy). Permutation testing established statistical significance. Results: Whole brain functional connectivity matrices could be classified at levels significantly greater than chance on the basis of participant (87.1% accuracy; P <.0001), task (68.1% accuracy; P =.002), and time point (72.1% accuracy; P =.015). All significant effects were reproduced using only the contralesional right hemisphere; the left hemisphere revealed significant effects for participant and task, but not time point. Resting state data could also be used to classify task-based data according to subject (66.0%; P <.0001). While the strongest posttherapy changes occurred among regions outside putative language networks, connections with traditional language-associated regions were significantly more positively correlated with behavioral outcome measures, and other regions had more negative correlations and intrahemispheric connections. Conclusions: Findings suggest the profound importance of considering interindividual variability when interpreting mechanisms of recovery in studies of functional connectivity in stroke.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 158-168 |
Number of pages | 11 |
Journal | Neurorehabilitation and Neural Repair |
Volume | 35 |
Issue number | 2 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Feb 2021 |
Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- aphasia
- functional neuroimaging
- magnetic resonance imaging
- rehabilitation
- stroke
- supervised machine learning
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Rehabilitation
- Neurology
- Clinical Neurology