Characterization of Functional Homotopy in Multiple Sclerosis using Resting-State Functional MRI

Lin Tang¹, Xinian Zuo^2,3, Clare Kelly^2,3, Yongxia Zhou¹, Hina Jaggi¹, Joseph Herbert¹, Robert I. Grossman¹, Michael Milham^2,3, Yulin Ge¹

Motivated by robust effect of homotopic resting state functional connectivity (RSFC) of the human brain, our data provide preliminary evidence of the feasibility using functional homotopy in detecting abnormalities of the inter-hemispheric coordination in multiple sclerosis (MS). We demonstrated that whole brain homotopic RSFC patterns were disrupted in patients with MS with reduced bilateral coordination in many higher-order cognitive regions and slightly increased RSFC between clusters of bilateral primary sensorymotor cortex. Such functional homotopic architecture changes may indicate impaired inter-hemispheric functional interaction in MS, likely induced by corpus callosum (CC) injury.