Atlas-Based Structural Disconnectomes Are Associated with Cognitive Performance in Brain Tumors

Abstract

Background:

Brain tumors are associated with impaired cognitive functioning, which may result from disruptions in brain structural connectivity. Estimating structural disconnections is a more advantageous representation of tumor impact and can be performed indirectly through normative brain atlases.

Materials and Methods:

Using a publicly available dataset of glioma and meningioma patient MRI scans and tumor masks, latent correlations were estimated between measures of structural disconnection and attention-based cognitive functioning. These measures included gray matter (GM) parcel damage, white matter tract damage, GM parcel-to-parcel disconnections, and reaction time (RTI) as part of the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery to assess attention.

Results:

Preprocessing pipelines with two different methods of minimizing the pathology impact on MRI normalization were utilized: cost-function masking and lesion filling. The results across both pipelines were nearly consistent, with significant correlations mainly found between RTI measures and the damage to the left inferior fronto-occipital and uncinate fasciculus, as well as the left prefrontal–visual disconnections.

Conclusions:

This alludes to the importance of left-hemispheric prefrontal–visual coupling in attention-based tasks, particularly those involving object- and feature-based attention.

Impact Statement

Using a publicly available dataset of glioma and meningioma patient MRI scans and tumor masks, atlas-based normative modeling and latent correlations were used to estimate the association between measures of structural disconnection and attention-based cognitive functioning. Our findings underscore the critical role of left-hemispheric prefrontal–visual coupling in attention-based tasks. Moreover, our comparison of preprocessing methods highlights the robustness of our results, affirming the significance of our approach in understanding the cognitive consequences of brain tumors.