Altered Cortical-Striatal Network in Patients With Hemifacial Spasm.

Lei Du,Jian Liu,Aocai Yang,Zhe Zhang,Guolin Ma,Dong Yang,Wenwen Gao,Xiuxiu Liu,Yige Wang,Bing Liu,Yue Chen,Kuan Lv,Jiajia Xue

doi:10.3389/fnhum.2021.770107

Abstract

Objective: Hemifacial spasm (HFS) is a kind of motor disorder, and the striatum plays a significant role in motor function. The purpose of this study was to explore the alterations of the cortical-striatal network in HFS using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).Methods: The fMRI data of 30 adult patients with primary unilateral HFS (15 left-side and 15 right-side) and 30 healthy controls were collected. Six subregions of the striatum in each hemisphere were selected for functional connectivity (FC) analysis. One-sample t-test was used to analyze the intragroup FC of the HFS group and the control group. Two-sample t-test was used to compare the difference of FC between the two groups. The correlation between the abnormal FC and severity of HFS was evaluated by using the Spearman correlation analysis.Results: Compared with the controls, the striatal subregions had altered FC with motor and orbitofrontal cortex in patients with HFS. The altered FC between striatal subregions and motor cortex was correlated with the spasm severity in patients with HFS.Conclusion: The FC of the cortical-striatal network was altered in primary HFS, and these alterations were correlated with the severity of HFS. This study indicated that the cortical-striatal network may play different roles in the underlying pathological mechanism of HFS.

Highlights

Hemifacial spasm (HFS) is a syndrome of involuntary contraction of facial muscles innervated by ipsilateral facial nerves (Palacios et al, 2008), which can gradually affect facial expressive muscles and platysma muscles (Lu et al, 2014)
Dorsal Caudal Putamen The contralateral DCP had significantly decreased functional connectivity (FC) with ipsilateral superior frontal gyrus (SFG), supplementary motor area (SMA), and precentral gyrus, respectively, in the HFS group compared with the HC group (Figures 3A, 4A and Table 2)
Dorsal Rostral Putamen The contralateral DRP had significantly increased FC with contralateral middle frontal gyrus (MFG) and SFG, in the HFS group compared with the HC group (Figures 3B, 4A and Table 2)

Summary

Introduction

Hemifacial spasm (HFS) is a syndrome of involuntary contraction of facial muscles innervated by ipsilateral facial nerves (Palacios et al, 2008), which can gradually affect facial expressive muscles and platysma muscles (Lu et al, 2014). Primary HFS is believed to be caused by vascular compression of the facial nerve at its root exit zone (Hermier, 2018), but the central mechanism is still not clear. Striatum plays a prominent role in modulating motor activity and higher cognitive function (Rosen and Williams, 2001). Altered Cortical-Striatal Network in HFS mechanism of the striatum in the regulation of motor in patients with HFS still remains unexplored. Identification of functional changes in the cortical-striatal loop of patients with HFS can help to understand disease pathogenesis and achieve early diagnosis as well as effective treatments. This study was aimed to investigate the altered cortical-striatal network in patients with primary HFS, using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)

Methods

Results

Conclusion