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Prediction of cognitive outcome after mild traumatic brain injury from acute measures of communication within brain networks
Imms, Phoebe Chowdhury, Nahian F. Chaudhari, Nikhil N. Amgalan, Anar Poudel, Govinda Caeyenberghs, Karen Irimia, Andrei
Imms, Phoebe
Chowdhury, Nahian F.
Chaudhari, Nikhil N.
Amgalan, Anar
Poudel, Govinda
Caeyenberghs, Karen
Irimia, Andrei
Abstract
A considerable but ill-defined proportion of patients with mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) experience persistent cognitive sequelae; the ability to identify such individuals early can help their neurorehabilitation. Here we tested the hypothesis that acute measures of efficient communication within brain networks are associated with patients’ risk for unfavorable cognitive outcome six months after mTBI. Diffusion and T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging, alongside cognitive measures, were obtained to map connectomes both one week and six months post injury in 113 adult patients with mTBI (71 males). For task-related brain networks, communication measures (characteristic path length, global efficiency, navigation efficiency) were moderately correlated with changes in cognition. Taking into account the covariance of age and sex, more unfavorable communication within networks were associated with worse outcomes within cognitive domains frequently impacted by mTBI (episodic and working memory, verbal fluency, inductive reasoning, and processing speed). Individuals with more unfavorable outcomes had significantly longer and less efficient pathways within networks supporting verbal fluency (all t > 2.786, p < .006), highlighting the vulnerability of language to mTBI. Participants in whom a task-related network was relatively inefficient one week post injury were up to eight times more likely to have unfavorable cognitive outcome pertaining to that task. Our findings suggest that communication measures within task-related networks identify mTBI patients who are unlikely to develop persistent cognitive deficits after mTBI. Our approach and findings can help to stratify mTBI patients according to their expected need for follow-up and/or neurorehabilitation.
Keywords
brain injury, outcome prediction, executive function, neurocognitive deficit prognosis, structural connectomics
Date
2024
Type
Journal article
Journal
Cortex
Book
Volume
171
Issue
Page Range
397-412
Article Number
ACU Department
Mary MacKillop Institute for Health Research
Faculty of Health Sciences
Faculty of Health Sciences
Collections
Relation URI
Source URL
Event URL
Open Access Status
License
All rights reserved
File Access
Controlled
Notes
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