Altered brain network integrity in patients with asthma: A structural connectomic diffusion tensor imaging study

Abstract

Brain functional deficits had been reported in asthma patients. These deficits may be related to treatment resistance, inaccurate self-assessment and poor self-management. However, changes of the structural brain network in asthma patients remain largely unclear. Diffusion tensor imaging were acquired from 54 asthmatic patients and 44 controls. Then we calculated all the participants’ structural network metrics. All the participants underwent the test of Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression and Anxiety as well as a lung function. Multiple linear correlation analyses were conducted. At the global level, asthma patients had a higher path length and lower global efficiency than controls, implying a shift toward regular networks. At the local level, asthma patients exhibited abnormal nodal connectivity with other nodes involved the fronto-limbic regions. Our findings highlight more locally segregated but less efficiently integrated structural networks, particularly involving frontal-limbic networks, in asthmatic patients. These findings provide important evidence to support the role of brain networks in the pathophysiology of asthma.