• Joana Frieske, Deborah Pareto, Aran García-Vidal, Koen Cuypers, MeesenRaf L JRLJREVAL Rehabilitation Research Center, Hasselt University, Diepenbeek, Belgium., Juli Alonso, Maria Jesus Arévalo, Ingrid Galán, Marta Renom, Ángela Vidal-Jordana, Cristina Auger, Xavier Montalban, Àlex Rovira, and Jaume Sastre-Garriga.
• Department of Neurology/Neuroimmunology, Multiple Sclerosis Centre of Catalonia (Cemcat), Hospital Universitari Vall d'Hebron, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain; Section of Neuroradiology and Magnetic Resonance Unit, Department of Radiology, Hospital Universitari Vall d'Hebron, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain; REVAL Rehabilitation Research Center, Hasselt University, Diepenbeek, Belgium; Movement Control & Neuroplasticity Research Group, Department of Movement Sciences, Group of Biomedical Sciences, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
• Neuroscience. 2022 Jul 15; 495: 86-96.

AbstractMultiple Sclerosis (MS) has been shown to significantly impair brain connectivity, as alterations in functional and structural networks have been identified and associated with clinical status, particularly cognitive deficits. We aimed to identify structural connectivity changes in grey matter networks following cognitive rehabilitation (CR) in persons with MS (PwMS). Fifteen long-standing PwMS underwent a 5-week CR-program and five healthy controls (HC) were also investigated. T1-weighted MRI scans and neuropsychological tests were obtained before and after CR. T1-weighted scans were used to examine grey matter networks with graph analytic parameters [betweenness centrality (BC), degree (D), clustering (Cl), path length (PL) and small world properties: connectedness, gamma and lambda values]. Results were analysed at the whole brain level and for each brain lobe. Before CR, PwMS displayed lower values for D in the left parietal lobe (p = 0.009) compared to HC. After CR, significant increases in Cl located in frontal (p = 0.024) and temporal (p = 0.026) regions in PwMS were accompanied by significant decreases in PL located in the right parietal lobe (p = 0.025) and BC globally (p = 0.010). Overall, CR may prevent a network worsening in long-standing PwMS by increasing local efficiency of the brain and therefore facilitating compensation mechanisms.Copyright © 2022 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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