| Literature DB >> 36033609 |
Laura Bonzano1, Marta Bortoletto2, Agnese Zazio2, Costanza Iester1, Antonietta Stango2, Roberto Gasparotti3, Carlo Miniussi4, Marco Bove5,6.
Abstract
In the seed-based method for studying functional connectivity (FC), seed selection is relevant. Here, we propose a new methodological approach for resting-state FC analysis of hand motor networks using the individual hand motor hotspot (hMHS) as seed. Nineteen right-handed healthy volunteers underwent a transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) session and resting-state fMRI. For each subject, the hMHS in both hemispheres was identified by TMS with the contralateral abductor pollicis brevis muscle as the target, the site eliciting the highest and most reliable motor-evoked potentials. Seed regions were built on coordinates on the cortex corresponding to the individual left and right hMHSs. For comparison, the left and right Brodmann's area 4 (BA4) masks extracted from a standard atlas were used as seed. The left and right hMHSs showed FC patterns at rest mainly including sensorimotor regions, with a bilateral connectivity only for the left hMHS. The statistical contrast BA4 > hMHS for both hemispheres showed different extension and lateralization of the functionally connected cortical regions. On the contrary, no voxels survived the opposite contrast (hMHS > BA4). This suggests that detection of individual hand motor seeds by TMS allows to identify functionally connected motor networks that are more specific with respect to those obtained starting from the a priori atlas-based identification of the primary motor cortex.Entities:
Keywords: hand motor hotspot; hand motor networks; resting-state functional MRI; seed-based functional connectivity (FC); transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)
Year: 2022 PMID: 36033609 PMCID: PMC9412736 DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2022.896746
Source DB: PubMed Journal: Front Neurosci ISSN: 1662-453X Impact factor: 5.152
FIGURE 1Regions of interest selected for seed-based functional connectivity analyses, overlaid on a T1 single-subject template. (A) Left hemisphere, (B) right hemisphere. l-BA4 and r-BA4 are shown in red; the other ROIs are differently colored to represent the individual seed regions based on the hand motor hotspots detected by TMS (l-hMHS and r-hMHS). Please note that some of the ROIs might be overlapped.
Description of the ROIs obtained using the individual hand motor hotspot (hMHS): MNI coordinates and corresponding location of the hMHS detected by TMS for each subject in the left and right hemispheres and Brodmann’s areas within each ROI.
| Laterality | Subject ID | hMHS MNI | Location | Brodmann’s areas included in the ROI |
| Left | 1 | −54 −9 42 | Gray matter | 4, 3 |
| 2 | −43 −9 53 | Gray matter | 4, 6 | |
| 3 | −31 1 57 | Gray matter | 4, 6 | |
| 4 | −37 −9 54 | Gray matter | 4, 6 | |
| 5 | −36 2 49 | Gray matter | 4, 6 | |
| 6 | −46 −4 51 | Gray matter | 4, 6 | |
| 7 | −45 −12 56 | Gray matter | 4, 6 | |
| 8 | −51 −16 53 | Gray matter | 4, 3 | |
| 9 | −43 −9 52 | Gray matter | 4, 6 | |
| 10 | −43 −14 54 | Gray matter | 4, 3 | |
| 11 | −39 −6 56 | Gray matter | 4, 6 | |
| 12 | −43 −12 56 | Gray matter | 4, 6 | |
| 13 | −39 −12 59 | Gray matter | 4, 6 | |
| 14 | −49 −11 51 | Gray matter | 4, 3 | |
| 15 | −41 12 50 | Gray matter | 4, 6 | |
| 16 | −43 −12 54 | Gray matter | 4, 3 | |
| 17 | −34 −17 62 | Gray matter | 4, 6 | |
| 18 | −36 9 52 | Gray matter | 4, 6 | |
| 19 | −22 −8 68 | Gray matter | 4, 6 | |
| Right | 1 | 37 −14 60 | Gray matter | 4, 6 |
| 2 | 54 −18 50 | Gray matter | 1, 3 | |
| 3 | 34 14 58 | Gray matter | 6 | |
| 4 | 46 −7 53 | Gray matter | 4, 6 | |
| 5 | 57 2 42 | Gray matter | 4, 6 | |
| 6 | 44 7 47 | Gray matter | 4, 6 | |
| 7 | 46 −17 59 | Gray matter | 4, 3 | |
| 8 | 49 −9 52 | Gray matter | 4, 6 | |
| 9 | 40 3 52 | Gray matter | 4, 6 | |
| 10 | 45 −17 55 | Gray matter | 4, 3 | |
| 11 | 34 1 59 | Gray matter | 4, 6 | |
| 12 | 44 −10 56 | Gray matter | 4, 6 | |
| 13 | 44 −14 58 | Gray matter | 4, 6 | |
| 14 | 48 −11 49 | Gray matter | 4, 3 | |
| 15 | 43 4 50 | Gray matter | 4, 6 | |
| 16 | 47 −5 53 | Gray matter | 4, 6 | |
| 17 | 41 −15 58 | Gray matter | 4, 6 | |
| 18 | 44 −3 50 | Gray matter | 4, 6 | |
| 19 | 49 5 43 | Gray matter | 4, 6 |
FIGURE 2Group seed-to-whole-brain functional connectivity results using as seeds (A) the l-hMHS, (B) the r-hMHS, (C) the l-BA4, and (D) the r- BA4. Voxels significantly connected with the different seed regions are displayed on a rendered surface (p < 0.05 FWE-corrected, extent of threshold k = 20 voxels, height threshold t = 7.05).
Comparisons of the results obtained with the different ROIs as seeds, separately for the two brain hemispheres (l-hMHS vs. l-BA4 and r-hMHS vs. r-BA4; p < 0.05 FWE-corrected, extent of threshold k = 20 voxels).
| Seed region | Cluster size (voxels) | Peak MNI | Laterality | Brodmann’s area | |
| l-BA4 > l-hMHS | 204 | 5.99 | −15 −36 66 | Left | 4 |
| 5.95 | −21 −30 63 | Left | 3 | ||
| 5.91 | −6 −33 54 | Left | 6 | ||
| 55 | 5.55 | 3 −39 54 | Right | 5 | |
| 5.55 | 12 −33 60 | Right | 6 | ||
| 5.53 | 21 −30 60 | Right | 3 | ||
| l-hMHS > l-BA4 |
| ||||
| r-BA4 > r-hMHS | 563 | 5.93 | 6 −48 66 | Right | 5 |
| 5.9 | 9 −39 69 | Right | 4 | ||
| 5.73 | −18 −51 51 | Left | 7 | ||
| 63 | 5.7 | −66 −27 3 | Left | 22 | |
| 5.49 | −60 −12 0 | Left | 22 | ||
| 5.32 | −63 −21 9 | Left | 42 | ||
| r-hMHS > r-BA4 |
|
“Peak” MNI coordinates refer to voxels showing most significant statistical difference between the functional connectivity maps obtained by the two seed-based analyses (with hMHS or BA4 as seed), cluster by cluster.
FIGURE 3Surface rendering showing voxels surviving the statistical contrasts between the group seed-to-whole-brain functional connectivity maps obtained with the different ROIs separately for the two brain hemispheres (p < 0.05 FWE-corrected, extent of threshold k = 20 voxels, height threshold t = 7.05). (A) l-BA4 > l-hMHS and (B) r-BA4 > r-hMHS.