Page 23 - MEGIN Book Of Abstracts - 2023

Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis

Flexibility of Fast Brain Dynamics and Disease mally, brain activity dynamically reconfigures over
Severity in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (2022) time, recruiting different brain areas. Brain pathologies
induce stereotyped dynamics which, in turn, are linked
Polverino, Arianna; Troisi Lopez, Emahnuel; Minino, to clinical impairment. Hence, based on recent evi-
Roberta; Liparoti, Marianna; Romano, Antonella; Trojsi, dence showing that brain functional networks become
Francesca; Lucidi, Fabio; Gollo, Leonardo; Jirsa, Viktor; hyperconnected as ALS progresses, we hypothesized
Sorrentino, Giuseppe; Sorrentino, Pierpaolo that the loss of flexible dynamics in ALS would predict
the symptoms severity.
From the Institute of Diagnosis and Treatment Hermitage
Capodimonte (A.P., G.S.), Naples, Italy; Department of Motor METHODS To test this hypothesis, we quantified flex-
Sciences and Wellness (E.T.L., R.M., A.R., G.S.), University of ibility using the "functional repertoire" (i.e., the number
Naples "Parthenope", Italy; Department of Developmental of configurations of active brain areas) as measured
and Social Psychology (M.L., F.L.), University of Rome "La from source-reconstructed magnetoencephalography
Sapienza", Italy; Department of Advanced Medical and Surgi- (MEG) in patients with ALS and healthy controls. The
cal Sciences (F.T.), University of Campania "Luigi Vanvitelli", activity of brain areas was reconstructed in the classic
Naples, Italy; Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health frequency bands, and the functional repertoire was
(L.G.), School of Psychological Sciences, Monash University, estimated to quantify spatiotemporal fluctuations of
Victoria, Australia; Institut de Neurosciences des Systèmes brain activity. Finally, we built a k-fold cross-validated
(V.J., P.S.), Inserm, INS, Aix-Marseille University, France; Insti- multilinear model to predict the individual clinical im-
tute of Applied Sciences and Intelligent Systems of National pairment from the size of the functional repertoire.
Research Council (G.S., P.S.), Pozzuoli, Italy; From the Insti-
tute of Diagnosis and Treatment Hermitage Capodimonte RESULTS Comparing 42 patients with ALS and 42
(A.P., G.S.), Naples, Italy; Department of Motor Sciences and healthy controls, we found a more stereotyped brain
Wellness (E.T.L., R.M., A.R., G.S.), University of Naples "Par- dynamics in patients with ALS (p < 0.05), as conveyed
thenope", Italy; Department of Developmental and Social by the smaller functional repertoire. The relationship
Psychology (M.L., F.L.), University of Rome "La Sapienza", Italy; between the size of the functional repertoire and the
Department of Advanced Medical and Surgical Sciences clinical scores in the ALS group showed significant
(F.T.), University of Campania "Luigi Vanvitelli", Naples, Italy; correlations in both the delta and the theta frequency
Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health (L.G.), School of bands. Furthermore, through a k-fold cross-validated
Psychological Sciences, Monash University, Victoria, Australia; multilinear regression model, we found that the
Institut de Neurosciences des Systèmes (V.J., P.S.), Inserm, INS, functional repertoire predicted both clinical staging
Aix-Marseille University, France; Institute of Applied Sciences (p < 0.001 and p < 0.01, in the delta and theta bands,
and Intelligent Systems of National Research Council (G.S., respectively) and symptoms severity (p < 0.001, in both
P.S.), Pozzuoli, Italy. [email protected] the delta and theta bands).

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Amyotrophic lateral DISCUSSION Our work shows that (1) ALS pathology
sclerosis (ALS) is a multisystem disorder, as supported reduces the flexibility of large-scale brain dynamics, (2)
by clinical, molecular, and neuroimaging evidence. As subcortical regions play a key role in determining brain
a consequence, predicting clinical features requires a dynamics, and (3) reduced brain flexibility predicts
description of large-scale neuronal dynamics. Nor- disease stage and symptoms severity. Our approach

 ontents  Index 2
C