M.M. Schoonheim

YNICL Journal 2021 Journal Article

Dorsal attention network centrality increases during recovery from acute stress exposure

• T.A.A. Broeders
• M.M. Schoonheim
• M. Vink
• L. Douw
• J.J.G. Geurts
• J.M.C. van Leeuwen
• C.H. Vinkers

Stress is a major risk factor for the development of almost all psychiatric disorders. In addition to the acute stress response, an efficient recovery in the aftermath of stress is important for optimal resilience. Increased stress vulnerability across psychiatric disorders may therefore be related to altered trajectories during the recovery phase following stress. Such recovery trajectories can be quantified by changes in functional brain networks. This study therefore evaluated longitudinal functional network changes related to stress in healthy individuals (N = 80), individuals at risk for psychiatric disorders (healthy siblings of schizophrenia patients) (N = 39), and euthymic bipolar I disorder (BD) patients (N = 36). Network changes were evaluated before and at 20 and 90 min after onset of an experimental acute stress task (Trier Social Stress Test) or a control condition. Whole-brain functional networks were analyzed using eigenvector centrality as a proxy for network importance, centrality change over time was related to the acute stress response and recovery for each group. In healthy individuals, centrality of the dorsal attention network (DAN; p = 0.007) changed over time in relation to stress. More specifically, DAN centrality increased during the recovery phase after acute stress exposure (p = 0.020), while no DAN centrality change was observed during the initial stress response (p = 0.626). Such increasing DAN centrality during stress recovery was also found in healthy siblings (p = 0.016), but not in BD patients (p = 0.554). This study highlights that temporally complex and precise changes in network configuration are vital to understand the response to and recovery from stress.

YNICL Journal 2021 Journal Article

Impaired saccadic eye movements in multiple sclerosis are related to altered functional connectivity of the oculomotor brain network

• J.A. Nij Bijvank
• E.M.M. Strijbis
• I.M. Nauta
• S.D. Kulik
• L.J. Balk
• C.J. Stam
• A. Hillebrand
• J.J.G. Geurts

BACKGROUND: Impaired eye movements in multiple sclerosis (MS) are common and could represent a non-invasive and accurate measure of (dys)functioning of interconnected areas within the complex brain network. The aim of this study was to test whether altered saccadic eye movements are related to changes in functional connectivity (FC) in patients with MS. METHODS: Cross-sectional eye movement (pro-saccades and anti-saccades) and magnetoencephalography (MEG) data from the Amsterdam MS cohort were included from 176 MS patients and 33 healthy controls. FC was calculated between all regions of the Brainnetome atlas in six conventional frequency bands. Cognitive function and disability were evaluated by previously validated measures. The relationships between saccadic parameters and both FC and clinical scores in MS patients were analysed using multivariate linear regression models. RESULTS: In MS pro- and anti-saccades were abnormal compared to healthy controls A relationship of saccadic eye movements was found with FC of the oculomotor network, which was stronger for regional than global FC. In general, abnormal eye movements were related to higher delta and theta FC but lower beta FC. Strongest associations were found for pro-saccadic latency and FC of the precuneus (beta band β = -0.23, p = .006), peak velocity and FC of the parietal eye field (theta band β = -0.25, p = .005) and gain and FC of the inferior frontal eye field (theta band β = -0.25, p = .003). Pro-saccadic latency was also strongly associated with disability scores and cognitive dysfunction. CONCLUSIONS: Impaired saccadic eye movements were related to functional connectivity of the oculomotor network and clinical performance in MS. This study also showed that, in addition to global network connectivity, studying regional changes in MEG studies could yield stronger correlations.

YNICL Journal 2018 Journal Article

Is impaired information processing speed a matter of structural or functional damage in MS?

• K.A. Meijer
• Q. van Geest
• A.J.C. Eijlers
• J.J.G. Geurts
• M.M. Schoonheim
• H.E. Hulst

OBJECTIVE: Cognitive deficits, especially those of information processing speed (IPS), are common in multiple sclerosis (MS), however, the underlying neurobiological mechanisms remain poorly understood. In this study, we examined structural and functional brain changes separately, but also in an integrative manner, in relation to IPS performance. METHODS: IPS was measured using the symbol digit modalities test (SDMT) in 330 MS patients and 96 controls. Patients with IPS impairment (IPS-I, z-score < -1.5) were compared to patients with preserved IPS performance (IPS-P) on volumetric measures, white matter integrity loss (using diffusion tensor imaging) and the severity of functional connectivity changes (using resting-state fMRI). Significant predictors of IPS performance were used to create groups of mild or severe structural and/or functional damage to determine the relative effect of structural and/or functional changes on IPS. RESULTS: IPS-I patients, compared to IPS-P patients, showed lower deep gray matter volume and less WM integrity, but stronger increases in functional connectivity. Patients with predominantly structural damage had worse IPS (z-score = -1.49) than patients with predominantly functional changes (z-score = -0.84), although both structural and functional measures remained significant in a regression model. Patients with severe structural and functional changes had worst IPS (z-score = -1.95). CONCLUSION: The level of structural damage explains IPS performance better than functional changes. After integrating functional and structural changes, however, we were able to detect more subtle and stepwise decline in IPS. In subgroups with a similar degree of structural damage, more severe functional changes resulted in worse IPS scores than those with only mild functional changes.

YNIMG Journal 2014 Journal Article

Functional brain network analysis using minimum spanning trees in Multiple Sclerosis: An MEG source-space study

• P. Tewarie
• A. Hillebrand
• M.M. Schoonheim
• B.W. Van Dijk
• J.J.G. Geurts
• F. Barkhof
• C.H. Polman
• C.J. Stam

Cognitive dysfunction in Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is closely related to altered functional brain network topology. Conventional network analyses to compare groups are hampered by differences in network size, density and suffer from normalization problems. We therefore computed the Minimum Spanning Tree (MST), a sub-graph of the original network, to counter these problems. We hypothesize that functional network changes analysed with MSTs are important for understanding cognitive changes in MS and that changes in MST topology also represent changes in the critical backbone of the original brain networks. Here, resting-state magnetoencephalography (MEG) recordings from 21 early MS patients and 17 age-, gender-, and education-matched controls were projected onto atlas-based regions-of-interest (ROIs) using beamforming. The phase lag index was applied to compute functional connectivity between regions, from which a graph and subsequently the MST was constructed. Results showed lower global integration in the alpha2 (10–13Hz) and beta (13–30Hz) bands in MS patients, whereas higher global integration was found in the theta band. Changes were most pronounced in the alpha2 band where a loss of hierarchical structure was observed, which was associated with poorer cognitive performance. Finally, the MST in MS patients as well as in healthy controls may represent the critical backbone of the original network. Together, these findings indicate that MST network analyses are able to detect network changes in MS patients, which may correspond to changes in the core of functional brain networks. Moreover, these changes, such as a loss of hierarchical structure, are related to cognitive performance in MS.

YNIMG Journal 2014 Journal Article

Structural degree predicts functional network connectivity: A multimodal resting-state fMRI and MEG study

• P. Tewarie
• A. Hillebrand
• E. van Dellen
• M.M. Schoonheim
• F. Barkhof
• C.H. Polman
• C. Beaulieu
• G. Gong

Communication between neuronal populations in the human brain is characterized by complex functional interactions across time and space. Recent studies have demonstrated that these functional interactions depend on the underlying structural connections at an aggregate level. Multiple imaging modalities can be used to investigate the relation between the structural connections between brain regions and their functional interactions at multiple timescales. We investigated if consistent modality-independent functional interactions take place between brain regions, and whether these can be accounted for by underlying structural properties. We used functional MRI (fMRI) and magnetoencephalography (MEG) recordings from a population of healthy adults together with a previously described structural network. A high overlap in resting-state functional networks was found in fMRI and especially alpha band MEG recordings. This overlap was characterized by a strongly interconnected functional core network in temporo-posterior brain regions. Anatomically realistically coupled neural mass models revealed that this strongly interconnected functional network emerges near the threshold for global synchronization. Most importantly, this functional core network could be explained by a trade-off between the product of the degrees of structurally-connected regions and the Euclidean distance between them. For both fMRI and MEG, the product of the degrees of connected regions was the most important predictor for functional network connectivity. Therefore, irrespective of the modality, these results indicate that a functional core network in the human brain is especially shaped by communication between high degree nodes of the structural network.

YNICL Journal 2013 Journal Article

Cognition in MS correlates with resting-state oscillatory brain activity: An explorative MEG source-space study

• M.L. Van der Meer
• P. Tewarie
• M.M. Schoonheim
• L. Douw
• F. Barkhof
• C.H. Polman
• C.J. Stam
• A. Hillebrand

Clinical and cognitive dysfunction in Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is insufficiently explained by structural damage as identified by traditional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the brain, indicating the need for reliable functional measures in MS. We investigated whether altered resting-state oscillatory power could be related to clinical and cognitive dysfunction in MS. MEG recordings were acquired using a 151-channel whole-head MEG system from 21 relapsing remitting MS patients and 17 healthy age-, gender-, and education-matched controls, using an eyes-closed no-task condition. Relative spectral power was estimated for 78 regions of interest, using an atlas-based beamforming approach, for classical frequency bands; delta, theta, alpha1, alpha2, beta and gamma. These cortical power estimates were compared between groups by means of permutation analysis and correlated with clinical disability (Expanded Disability Status Scale: EDSS), cognitive performance and MRI measures of atrophy and lesion load. Patients showed increased power in the alpha1 band and decreased power in the alpha2 band, compared to controls, mainly in occipital, parietal and temporal areas, confirmed by a lower alpha peak-frequency. Increased power in the alpha1 band was associated with worse overall cognition and especially with information processing speed. Our quantitative relative power analysis of MEG recordings showed abnormalities in oscillatory brain dynamics in MS patients in the alpha band. By applying source-space analyses, this study provides a detailed topographical view of abnormal brain activity in MS patients, especially localized to occipital areas. Interestingly, poor cognitive performance was related to high resting-state alpha1 power indicating that changes in oscillatory activity might be of value as an objective measure of disease burden in MS patients.

YNIMG Journal 2009 Journal Article

Functional brain networks in AD: Randomization of a “small-world”

• E.J. Sanz-Arigita
• M.M. Schoonheim
• J.S. Damoiseaux
• S.A. Rombouts
• F. Barkhof
• Ph. Scheltens
• C.J. Stam