Woo Shim1,2, Kwangyeol Yeol Baek1,2,
Jeong Kon Kim3, Guangping Dai1, Jaeseong Jeong2,
Bruce Rosen1, Young Ro Kim1
1Radiology, Athinoula A. Martinos
Center for Biomedical Imaging, Charlestown, MA, United States; 2Bio
and brain engineering, KAIST, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon, Korea, Republic of; 3Radiology,
Asan Medical Center, Seoul, Korea, Republic of
We
monitored changes of resting-states functional connectivity using
cross-correlation technique over a period of 30 days after transient cerebral
ischemic damage. Averaged correlation strengths among some ROIs in stroke
rats monotonically increased within the contralesional hemisphere over time,
eventually matching those in control group. Despite the slight recovery,
cross-correlation values measured within ipsilesional hemisphere and between
bilateral hemispheres show severely impaired functional connectivity over 30
days after stroke. Although highly speculative, the data demonstrated that
the initial limb dysfunction is related to the loss of brain connectivity in
both ipsi- and contra-lesonal brain regions and that the restoration of
function may be associated more with the increase of functional connectivity
within the contralesional than the ipsilesional hemisphere.