Aberrant Static and Dynamic Functional Network Connectivity in Acute Mild Traumatic Brain Injury with Cognitive Impairment

This study aimed to investigate differences in static and dynamic functional network connectivity (FNC) and explore their association with neurocognitive performance in acute mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI). A total of 76 patients with acute mTBI and 70 age-matched and sex-matched healthy controls were enrolled (age 43.79 ± 10.22 years vs. 45.63 ± 9.49 years; male/female: 34/42 vs. 38/32; all p > 0.05) and underwent resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scan (repetition time/echo time = 2000/30 ms, 230 volumes). Independent component analysis was conducted to evaluate static and dynamic FNC patterns on the basis of nine resting-state networks, namely, auditory network (AUDN), dorsal attention network (dAN), ventral attention network (vAN), default mode network (DMN), left frontoparietal network (LFPN), right frontoparietal network (RFPN), somatomotor network (SMN), visual network (VN), and salience network (SN). Spearman’s correlation among aberrances in FNC values, and Montreal cognitive assessment (MoCA) scores was further measured in mTBI. Compared with controls, patients with mTBI showed wide aberrances of static FNC, such as reduced FNC in DMN–vAN and VN–vAN pairs. The mTBI patients exhibited aberrant dynamic FNC in state 2, involving reduced FNC aberrance in the vAN with AUDN, VN with DMN and dAN, and SN with SMN and vAN. Reduced dFNC in the SN–vAN pair was negatively correlated with the MoCA score. Our findings suggest that aberrant static and dynamic FNC at the acute stage may contribute to cognitive symptoms, which not only may expand knowledge regarding FNC cognition relations from the static perspective but also from the dynamic perspective.