TY - JOUR
T1 - Gray matter volume and executive functioning correlate with time since injury following mild traumatic brain injury
AU - Killgore, William D.S.
AU - Singh, Prabhjyot
AU - Kipman, Maia
AU - Pisner, Derek
AU - Fridman, Andrew
AU - Weber, Mareen
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported by a USAMRAA grant to WDSK ( W81XWH-12-1-0386 ).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 Elsevier Ireland Ltd.
PY - 2016/1/26
Y1 - 2016/1/26
N2 - Most people who sustain a mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) will recover to baseline functioning within a period of several days to weeks. A substantial minority of patients, however, will show persistent symptoms and mild cognitive complaints for much longer. To more clearly delineate how the duration of time since injury (TSI) is associated with neuroplastic cortical volume changes and cognitive recovery, we employed voxel-based morphometry (VBM) and select neuropsychological measures in a cross-sectional sample of 26 patients with mTBI assessed at either two-weeks, one-month, three-months, six-months, or one-year post injury, and a sample of 12 healthy controls. Longer duration of TSI was associated with larger gray matter volume (GMV) within the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and right fusiform gyrus, and better neurocognitive performance on measures of visuospatial design fluency and emotional functioning. In particular, volume within the vmPFC was positively correlated with design fluency and negatively correlated with symptoms of anxiety, whereas GMV of the fusiform gyrus was associated with greater design fluency and sustained visual psychomotor vigilance performance. Moreover, the larger GMV seen among the more chronic individuals was significantly greater than healthy controls, suggesting possible enlargement of these regions with time since injury. These findings are interpreted in light of burgeoning evidence suggesting that cortical regions often exhibit structural changes following experience or practice, and suggest that with greater time since an mTBI, the brain displays compensatory remodeling of cortical regions involved in emotional regulation, which may reduce distractibility during attention demanding visuo-motor tasks.
AB - Most people who sustain a mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) will recover to baseline functioning within a period of several days to weeks. A substantial minority of patients, however, will show persistent symptoms and mild cognitive complaints for much longer. To more clearly delineate how the duration of time since injury (TSI) is associated with neuroplastic cortical volume changes and cognitive recovery, we employed voxel-based morphometry (VBM) and select neuropsychological measures in a cross-sectional sample of 26 patients with mTBI assessed at either two-weeks, one-month, three-months, six-months, or one-year post injury, and a sample of 12 healthy controls. Longer duration of TSI was associated with larger gray matter volume (GMV) within the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and right fusiform gyrus, and better neurocognitive performance on measures of visuospatial design fluency and emotional functioning. In particular, volume within the vmPFC was positively correlated with design fluency and negatively correlated with symptoms of anxiety, whereas GMV of the fusiform gyrus was associated with greater design fluency and sustained visual psychomotor vigilance performance. Moreover, the larger GMV seen among the more chronic individuals was significantly greater than healthy controls, suggesting possible enlargement of these regions with time since injury. These findings are interpreted in light of burgeoning evidence suggesting that cortical regions often exhibit structural changes following experience or practice, and suggest that with greater time since an mTBI, the brain displays compensatory remodeling of cortical regions involved in emotional regulation, which may reduce distractibility during attention demanding visuo-motor tasks.
KW - Concussion
KW - Emotion regulation
KW - Gray matter
KW - MTBI
KW - Mild traumatic brain injury
KW - Motor speed
KW - Psychomotor vigilance
KW - SPM8
KW - VBM
KW - Voxel-based morphometry
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U2 - 10.1016/j.neulet.2015.12.033
DO - 10.1016/j.neulet.2015.12.033
M3 - Article
C2 - 26711488
AN - SCOPUS:84951816285
SN - 0304-3940
VL - 612
SP - 238
EP - 244
JO - Neuroscience Letters
JF - Neuroscience Letters
ER -