Abstract
ObjectiveWe sought to assess cortical function in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) using noninvasive neural signal recording.MethodsResting-state magnetoencephalography was used to measure power fluctuations in neuronal oscillations from distributed cortical parcels in 24 patients with ALS and 24 healthy controls. A further 9 patients with primary lateral sclerosis and a group of 15 asymptomatic carriers of genetic mutations associated with ALS were also studied.ResultsIncreased functional connectivity, particularly from the posterior cingulate cortex, was demonstrated in both patient groups compared to healthy controls. Directionally similar patterns were also evident in the asymptomatic genetic mutation carrier group.ConclusionIncreased cortical functional connectivity elevation is a quantitative marker that reflects ALS pathology across its clinical spectrum, and may develop during the presymptomatic period. The amelioration of pathologic magnetoencephalography signals might be a marker sensitive enough to provide proof-of-principle in the development of future neuroprotective therapeutics.
Highlights
Resting-state magnetoencephalography was used to measure power fluctuations in neuronal oscillations from distributed cortical parcels in 24 patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and 24 healthy controls
functional connectivity (FC) was increased throughout the cortical networks in patients with ALS and, to a lesser extent, in patients with primary lateral sclerosis (PLS) and ALS-linked genetic mutations (AGCs)
The FC differences were most marked in the group of patients with ALS
Summary
Resting-state magnetoencephalography was used to measure power fluctuations in neuronal oscillations from distributed cortical parcels in 24 patients with ALS and 24 healthy controls. Participants All patients were recruited from the Oxford Motor Neurone Disease Care and Research Centre, diagnosed by experienced neurologists according to standard criteria (minimum El Escorial probable at enrollment, and subsequently followed longitudinally to confirm expected disease progression). A range of patients with ALS, plus a small group with the consistently slowly progressive upper motor neuron–only variant, MEG acquisition Ten continuous minutes of MEG resting-state data were acquired per participant on an Elekta Neuromag 306-channel scanner (Elekta AB, Stockholm, Sweden) at the Oxford Centre for Human Brain Activity. Prior to acquisition, a Polhemus 3D tracking system (Polhemus, Colchester, Vermont) recorded 4 fixed coil positions relative to nasion and preauricular fiducial landmarks, alongside distributed points (;100) covering the scalp and in later cases the nose (;50 points) surface.
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