Affiliations: [a] Department of Neurology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei, China
| [b] The College of Mental Health and Psychological Sciences, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, China
| [c] Institute of Artificial Intelligence, Hefei Comprehensive National Science Center, Hefei, China
| [d] Anhui Province Key Laboratory of Cognition and Neuropsychiatric Disorders, Hefei, China
| [e] Collaborative Innovation Center of Neuropsychiatric Disorders and Mental Health, Hefei, China
| [f] Department of Neurology, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei, China
| [g] Hefei National Lab for Physical Sciences at the Microscale and the Centers for Biomedical Engineering, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China
Correspondence:
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Correspondence to: Kai Wang and Yanghua Tian, Department of Neurology, the First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, 218 Jixi Road, Hefei, Anhui Province, PR China. E-mail: [email protected]. (Kai Wang); E-mail: [email protected]. (Yanghua Tian).
Note: [1] These authors contributed equally to this work.
Abstract: Background:The white matter hyperintensities (WMHs) are considered as one of the core neuroimaging findings of cerebral small vessel disease and independently associated with cognitive deficit. The parietal lobe is a heterogeneous area containing many subregions and play an important role in the processes of neurocognition. Objective:To explore the relationship between parietal subregions alterations and cognitive impairments in WHMs. Methods:Resting-state functional connectivity (rs-FC) analyses of parietal subregions were performed in 104 right-handed WMHs patients divided into mild (n = 39), moderate (n = 37), and severe WMHs (n = 28) groups according to the Fazekas scale and 36 healthy controls. Parietal subregions were defined using tractographic Human Brainnetome Atlas and included five subregions for superior parietal lobe, six subregions for inferior parietal lobe (IPL), and three subregions for precuneus. All participants underwent a neuropsychological test battery to evaluate emotional and general cognitive functions. Results:Differences existed between the rs-FC strength of IPL_R_6_2 with the left anterior cingulate gyrus, IPL_R_6_3 with the right dorsolateral superior frontal gyrus, and the IPL_R_6_5 with the left anterior cingulate gyrus. The connectivity strength between IPL_R_6_3 and the left anterior cingulate gyrus were correlated with AVLT-immediate and AVLT-recognition test in WMHs. Conclusion:We explored the roles of parietal subregions in WMHs using rs-FC. The functional connectivity of parietal subregions with the cortex regions showed significant differences between the patients with WMHs and healthy controls which may be associated with cognitive deficits in WMHs.
