Inter-hemispheric functional connectivity changes with corpus callosum morphology in multiple sclerosis

Abstract

Multiple sclerosis (MS) affects myelin sheaths within the central nervous system, concurring to cause brain atrophy and neurodegeneration as well as gradual functional disconnections. To explore early signs of altered connectivity in MS from a structural and functional perspective, the morphology of corpus callosum (CC) was correlated with a dynamic inter-hemispheric connectivity index. Twenty mildly disabled patients affected by a relapsing-remitting (RR) form of MS (EDSS⩽3.5) and 15 healthy subjects underwent structural MRI to measure CC thickness over 100 sections and electroencephalography to assess a spectral coherence index between primary regions devoted to hand control, at rest and during an isometric handgrip. In patients, an overall CC atrophy was associated with increased lesion load. A less efficacious inter-hemispheric coherence (IHCoh) during movement was associated with CC atrophy in sections interconnecting homologous primary motor areas (anterior mid-body). In healthy controls, less efficacious IHCoh at rest was associated with a thinner CC splenium. Our data suggest that in mildly disabled RR-MS patients a covert impairment may be detected in the correlation between the structural (CC thickness) and functional (IHCoh) measures of homologous networks, whereas these two counterparts do not yet differ individually from controls.

Keywords: corpus callosum; electroencephalography/event-related potentials (EEG/ERPs); inter-hemispheric coherence; relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS); sensorimotor control; structural magnetic resonance imaging.