Abnormal perilesional BOLD signal is not correlated with stroke patients’ behavior

Several functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies of acute stroke have reported that patients with behavioral deficits show abnormal signal in intact regions of the damaged hemisphere close to the lesion border relative to homologous regions of the patient’s intact hemisphere (causing an...

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Main Authors:	de Haan, Bianca, Rorden, Chris, Karnath, Hans-Otto
Format:	Online
Language:	English
Published:	Frontiers Media S.A. 2013
Online Access:	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3797400/

id	pubmed-3797400
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	pubmed-37974002013-10-17 Abnormal perilesional BOLD signal is not correlated with stroke patients’ behavior de Haan, Bianca Rorden, Chris Karnath, Hans-Otto Neuroscience Several functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies of acute stroke have reported that patients with behavioral deficits show abnormal signal in intact regions of the damaged hemisphere close to the lesion border relative to homologous regions of the patient’s intact hemisphere (causing an interhemispheric imbalance) as well as analogous regions in healthy controls. These effects have been interpreted as demonstrating a causal relationship between the abnormal fMRI signal and the pathological behavior. Here we explore an alternative explanation: perhaps the abnormal Blood-Oxygenation Level Dependent (BOLD) fMRI signal is merely a function of distance from the acute lesion. To investigate this hypothesis, we examined three patients with an acute right hemisphere cortical stroke who did not show any overt behavioral deficits, as well as nine healthy elderly controls. We acquired fMRI data while the participants performed a simple visual orientation judgment task. In patients, we observed an abnormal interhemispheric balance consisting of lower levels of percent signal change in perilesional areas of the damaged hemisphere relative to homologous areas in neurologically healthy controls. This suggests that the physiological changes and corresponding interhemispheric imbalance detected by fMRI BOLD in acute stroke observed close to the lesion border may not necessarily reflect changes in the neural function, nor necessarily influence the individuals’ (e.g., attentional) behavior. Frontiers Media S.A. 2013-10-16 /pmc/articles/PMC3797400/ /pubmed/24137123 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2013.00669 Text en Copyright © 2013 de Haan B, Rorden C and Karnath H-O. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
repository_type	Open Access Journal
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	US National Center for Biotechnology Information
building	NCBI PubMed
collection	Online Access
language	English
format	Online
author	de Haan, Bianca Rorden, Chris Karnath, Hans-Otto
spellingShingle	de Haan, Bianca Rorden, Chris Karnath, Hans-Otto Abnormal perilesional BOLD signal is not correlated with stroke patients’ behavior
author_facet	de Haan, Bianca Rorden, Chris Karnath, Hans-Otto
author_sort	de Haan, Bianca
title	Abnormal perilesional BOLD signal is not correlated with stroke patients’ behavior
title_short	Abnormal perilesional BOLD signal is not correlated with stroke patients’ behavior
title_full	Abnormal perilesional BOLD signal is not correlated with stroke patients’ behavior
title_fullStr	Abnormal perilesional BOLD signal is not correlated with stroke patients’ behavior
title_full_unstemmed	Abnormal perilesional BOLD signal is not correlated with stroke patients’ behavior
title_sort	abnormal perilesional bold signal is not correlated with stroke patients’ behavior
description	Several functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies of acute stroke have reported that patients with behavioral deficits show abnormal signal in intact regions of the damaged hemisphere close to the lesion border relative to homologous regions of the patient’s intact hemisphere (causing an interhemispheric imbalance) as well as analogous regions in healthy controls. These effects have been interpreted as demonstrating a causal relationship between the abnormal fMRI signal and the pathological behavior. Here we explore an alternative explanation: perhaps the abnormal Blood-Oxygenation Level Dependent (BOLD) fMRI signal is merely a function of distance from the acute lesion. To investigate this hypothesis, we examined three patients with an acute right hemisphere cortical stroke who did not show any overt behavioral deficits, as well as nine healthy elderly controls. We acquired fMRI data while the participants performed a simple visual orientation judgment task. In patients, we observed an abnormal interhemispheric balance consisting of lower levels of percent signal change in perilesional areas of the damaged hemisphere relative to homologous areas in neurologically healthy controls. This suggests that the physiological changes and corresponding interhemispheric imbalance detected by fMRI BOLD in acute stroke observed close to the lesion border may not necessarily reflect changes in the neural function, nor necessarily influence the individuals’ (e.g., attentional) behavior.
publisher	Frontiers Media S.A.
publishDate	2013
url	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3797400/
_version_	1612018478099726336

Abnormal perilesional BOLD signal is not correlated with stroke patients’ behavior

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