Resting-State Functional Connectivity Alterations Associated with Six-Month Outcomes in Mild Traumatic Brain Injury

This study uses resting-state functional MRI (rsfMRI) to investigate how mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) affects brain connectivity and how these changes relate to long-term outcomes. The study compares brain activity patterns in mTBI patients with those of healthy individuals and links these patterns to cognitive and behavioral performance six months after the injury. The findings suggest that rsfMRI could be a useful tool for early diagnosis and prediction of cognitive and behavioral outcomes in mTBI patients, even when standard brain scans show no visible damage.

• 1
  mTBI patients, regardless of whether they show lesions on standard scans, exhibit alterations in brain network connectivity that correlate with cognitive performance six months post-injury.
• 2
  mTBI patients without visible lesions on CT/MRI scans showed reduced connectivity in specific brain networks, predicting postconcussive symptoms.
• 3
  The study identified distinct patterns of network interaction alterations in mTBI patients with and without visible lesions, suggesting different underlying mechanisms.