Multimodal neuroimaging study reveals dissociable processes between structural and functional networks in patients with subacute intracerebral hemorrhage

Emerging evidence has revealed widespread stroke-induced brain dysconnectivity, which leads to abnormal network organization. However, there are apparent discrepancies in dysconnectivity between structural connectivity and functional connectivity studies. In this work, resting-state fMRI and structural diffusion tensor imaging were obtained from 26 patients with subacute (10–14 days) intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) and 20 matched healthy participants (patients/controls = 21/18 after head motion rejection). Graph theoretical approaches were applied to multimodal brain networks to quantitatively compare topological properties between both groups. Prominent small-world properties were found in the structural and functional brain networks of both groups. However, a significant deficit in global integration was revealed in the structural brain networks of the patient group and was associated with more severe clinical manifestations of ICH. Regarding ICH-related nodal deficits, reduced nodal interconnectivity was mainly detected in motor-related regions. Moreover, in the functional brain network, topological properties were mostly comparable between patients with ICH and healthy participants. Beyond the prominent small-world architecture in multimodal brain networks, there are dissociable alterations between structural and functional brain networks in patients with ICH. These findings highlight the potential for using aberrant network metrics as neural biomarkers for evaluation of the severity of ICH.