Unilateral thalamic glioma disrupts large-scale functional architecture of human brain during resting state.

Background: The thalamus is an important deep brain structure for the synchronization of brain rhythm and the integration of cortical activity. Human brain imaging and computational modeling have non-invasively revealed its role in maintaining the cortical network architecture and functional hierarchy. Purpose: The objective of this study was to identify the effect of unilateral thalamic damage on the human brain intrinsic functional architecture. Patients and methods: We collected an 8-minute resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (R-fMRI) data on a 3.0 T magnetic resonance scanner for all the participants: a preoperative patient with left thalamus destroyed by anaplastic astrocytoma (WHO grade III type of astrocytoma) and 20 matched healthy controls. The R-fMRI data was analyzed for functional connectivity and amplitude of spontaneous fluctuations. Results: The patient showed prominent decrease in functional connectivity within primary sensory networks and advanced cognitive networks, and extensive alterations in between-network coupling. Further analysis of the amplitude of spontaneous activity suggested significant decrease especially in the topographies of default mode network and the Papez circuit. Conclusion: This result provided evidence about the consequences of thalamic destruction on the correlation and landscape of spontaneous brain activity, promoting our understanding of the effects of thalamic damage on large-scale brain networks.