Independent Component Analysis Of Brain Network Functional Connections In Patients With Moderate To Severe

Objective:Using the method of independent component analysis（Melodic ICA）to study the changes of brain network function connection in moderate and severe OSAHS patients.To reveal the possible neuropathological mechanism of cognitive dysfunction in OSAHS patients and explore the responsible brain area related to the severity of OSAHS patients.Methods:In this study,39 untreated patients with moderate-to-severe OSAHS（AHI≥15beats/h）and 26 controls with good sleep（AHI<5 beats/h）matched with sex,age,skill,and years of education were collected.All subjects tested 3.0T head MRI resting state and T1WI thin-layer scanning,PSG（AHI,MinimalSpO₂,ODI,etc.）and Montreal Cognitive Scale（MoCA）.The FSL toolkit（Melodic ICA,Dual Regression,FWE correction）was used to perform post-processing of the data to obtain the differences in the functional connectivity of the brain network between the two groups of subjects,and the Pearson correlation analysis was performed between the functional connectivity values of the different brain regions and MoCA scores and PSG indicators.P<0.05 was considered statistically significant.Results:1.There was no significant difference in gender,age and education years between the OSAHS group and the control group（P>0.05）.The BMI,AHI and ODI of OSAHS group were higher than those of control group（P<0.001）.Both the MoCA score and the MinimalSpO₂ were lower than the control group（P<0.001）.2.Compared with the control group,the areas with enhanced functional connection in the OSAHS group were the right superior temporal gyrus,central sulcus,central posterior gyrus,lenticular nucleus,middle frontal gyrus,trigonometry inferior frontal gyrus and bilateral opercular inferior frontal gyrus（P<0.05）,the brain areas with weakened functional connection were the bilateral anterior cingulate gyrus and middle cingulate gyrus,midfrontal gyrus,left orbital superior frontal and orbital inferior frontal gyrus,medial superior frontal gyrus,trigonometry inferior frontal gyrus,posterior cingulate gyrus,precuneus,insula,lenticular nucleus,caudate nucleus,thalamus,right dorsolateral superior frontal gyrus and opercular inferior frontal gyrus（P<0.05）.3.There was a positive correlation between MoCA score and functional connectivity of bilateral anterior cingulate gyrus and middle cingulate gyrus,left medial superior frontal gyrus and right dorsolateral superior frontal gyrus.The correlation coefficients were all>0.2,P<0.05.4.The functional connection values of the right superior temporal gyrus,central sulcus,central posterior gyrus and lenticular nucleus were positively correlated with AHI and ODI,and negatively correlated with the MinimalSpO₂.The functional connection values of the bilateral cingulate gyrus,right dorsolateral superior frontal gyrus and left precuneus were negatively correlated with AHI and ODI,and the functional connection values of the right middle cingulate gyrus,left caudate nucleus and insula were positively correlated with the MinimalSpO₂.The correlation coefficients were all>0.3,P<0.01.Conclusion:1.Using the method of Melodic ICA can accurately detect the changes of brain network functional connection in OASHS patients.There are abnormal functional connections in DMN,limbic system,FPN,SMN and other resting state networks of OSAHS patients’brain,and the functional connections in both cerebral hemispheres are redistributed,the left cerebral hemisphere is mainly damaged and the right cerebral hemisphere is mainly compensated.2.OSAHS patients with abnormal functional connections in the brain regions such as the cingulate gyrus and prefrontal lobe are expected to become imaging markers of cognitive impairment in OSAHS.3.The changes of functional connections of cingulate gyrus,prefrontal lobe,basal ganglia and superior temporal gyrus in OSAHS patients may be sensitive markers reflecting the severity of disease.