Predicting local control of brain metastases after stereotactic radiotherapy with clinical, radiomics and deep learning features.

Background And Purpose: Timely identification of local failure after stereotactic radiotherapy for brain metastases allows for treatment modifications, potentially improving outcomes. While previous studies showed that adding radiomics or Deep Learning (DL) features to clinical features increased Local Control (LC) prediction accuracy, their combined potential to predict LC remains unexplored. We examined whether a model using a combination of radiomics, DL and clinical features achieves better accuracy than models using only a subset of these features.

Factors associated with the local control of brain metastases: a systematic search and machine learning application.

Background: Enhancing Local Control (LC) of brain metastases is pivotal for improving overall survival, which makes the prediction of local treatment failure a crucial aspect of treatment planning. Understanding the factors that influence LC of brain metastases is imperative for optimizing treatment strategies and subsequently extending overall survival. Machine learning algorithms may help to identify factors that predict outcomes.

Predicting Cognitive Functioning for Patients with a High-Grade Glioma: Evaluating Different Representations of Tumor Location in a Common Space.

Cognitive functioning is increasingly considered when making treatment decisions for patients with a brain tumor in view of a personalized onco-functional balance. Ideally, one can predict cognitive functioning of individual patients to make treatment decisions considering this balance. To make accurate predictions, an informative representation of tumor location is pivotal, yet comparisons of representations are lacking.

Cognitive complaints in patients with untreated obstructive sleep apnea versus patients with neurological and respiratory diseases: prevalence, severity and risk factors.

Purpose: Little is known about cognitive complaints (self-reported problems in cognitive functioning) in patients with Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA). We compared the prevalence and severity of cognitive complaints in patients with untreated OSA to patients with neurological and respiratory diseases. We also studied risk factors for cognitive complaints across these diseases, including OSA.

Preoperative executive functioning impairments in patients with a meningioma: does a frontal location matter?

Patients with meningiomas frequently exhibit impairments in executive functioning. There are few studies specifically examining the role of frontal meningioma localization in executive functioning impairments. This study examines whether frontally located meningiomas are specifically associated with executive functioning impairments in a large sample of meningioma patients before treatment, using an axis-wise and lobe-based approach to meningioma localization.

Can structure predict function at individual level in the human connectome?

Several studies predicting Functional Connectivity (FC) from Structural Connectivity (SC) at individual level have been published in recent years, each promising increased performance and utility. We investigated three of these studies, analyzing whether the results truly represent a meaningful individual-level mapping from SC to FC. Using data from the Human Connectome Project shared accross the three studies, we constructed a predictor by averaging FC of training data and analyzed its performance in the same way.

Working memory performance in glioma patients is associated with functional connectivity between the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and default mode network.

In healthy subjects, activity in the default mode network (DMN) and the frontoparietal network (FPN) has consistently been associated with working memory (WM). In particular, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) is important for WM. The functional-anatomical basis of WM impairment in glioma patients is, however, still poorly understood.

Executive functioning following surgery near the frontal aslant tract in low-grade glioma patients: A patient-specific tractography study.

Background: The Frontal Aslant Tract (FAT) has been associated with executive functions (EF), but it remains unclear what role the FAT plays in EF, and whether preoperative dysfunction of the FAT is associated to long-lasting postsurgical executive impairments.

Methods: In this study, we examined the course of EF from pre-surgery (n = 75) to 3 (n = 61) and 12 (n = 25) months after surgery in patients with frontal and parietal low-grade gliomas (LGGs), to establish the degree to which long-term EF deficits exist. Secondly, we used patient-specific tractography to investigate the extent to which overlap of the tumor with the FAT, as well as integrity of the FAT, presurgery were related to EF on the short and longer term after surgery.

Oligodendrogliomas tend to infiltrate the frontal aslant tract, whereas astrocytomas tend to displace it.

Introduction: MR-tractography is increasingly used in neurosurgical practice to evaluate the anatomical relationships between glioma and nearby subcortical tracts. In some patients, the subcortical tracts seem displaced by the glioma, while in other patients, the subcortical tracts seem infiltrated without displacement. At this point, it is unknown whether these different patterns are related to tumor type.

Presurgical Executive Functioning in Low-Grade Glioma Patients Cannot Be Topographically Mapped.

Executive dysfunctions have a high prevalence in low-grade glioma patients and may be the result of structural disconnections of particular subcortical tracts and/or networks. However, little research has focused on preoperative low-grade glioma patients. The frontotemporoparietal network has been closely linked to executive functions and is substantiated by the superior longitudinal fasciculus.

Neurocognition in adults with intracranial tumors: does location really matter?

Objective: As preservation of cognitive functioning increasingly becomes important in the light of ameliorated survival after intracranial tumor treatments, identification of eloquent brain areas would enable optimization of these treatments.

Methods: This cohort study enrolled adult intracranial tumor patients who received neuropsychological assessments pre-irradiation, estimating processing speed, verbal fluency and memory. Anatomical magnetic resonance imaging scans were used for multivariate voxel-wise lesion-symptom predictions of the test scores (corrected for age, gender, educational level, histological subtype, surgery, and tumor volume).

The third branch of the superior longitudinal system.

One of the major associative fiber pathways in the brain is the superior longitudinal system. This review discusses the current knowledge gained from studies on the third branch of the superior longitudinal system (SLS) regarding its anatomy, functional role in healthy individuals, results from lesion-symptom mapping studies and intraoperative electrostimulation studies. The results of these studies clearly indicate that the third branch of the SLS is a distinct pathway, as seen both from a functional and anatomical perspective.

The frontal aslant tract and its role in executive functions: a quantitative tractography study in glioma patients.

Focal white matter lesions can cause cognitive impairments due to disconnections within or between networks. There is some preliminary evidence that there are specific hubs and fiber pathways that should be spared during surgery to retain cognitive performance. A tract potentially involved in important higher-level cognitive processes is the frontal aslant tract.

A systematic review of the use of subcortical intraoperative electrical stimulation mapping for monitoring of executive deficits and neglect: what is the evidence so far?

Background: Over the past decade, the functional importance of white matter pathways has been increasingly acknowledged in neurosurgical planning. A method to directly study anatomo-functional correlations is direct electrical stimulation (DES). DES has been widely accepted by neurosurgeons as a reliable tool to minimize the occurrence of permanent postoperative motor, vision, and language deficits.

Metacognitive Awareness of Difficulty in Action Selection: The Role of the Cingulo-opercular Network.

The question whether and how we are able to monitor our own cognitive states (metacognition) has been a matter of debate for decades. Do we have direct access to our cognitive processes, or can we only infer them indirectly based on their consequences? In the current study, we wanted to investigate the brain circuits that underlie the metacognitive experience of fluency in action selection. To manipulate action-selection fluency, we used a subliminal response priming paradigm.

Executive functional deficits during electrical stimulation of the right frontal aslant tract.

Direct electrical stimulation mapping was used to map executive functions during awake surgery of a patient with a right frontal low-grade glioma. We specifically targeted the frontal aslant tract, as this pathway had been infiltrated by the tumor. The right frontal aslant tract has been implicated in executive functions in the neuroscientific literature, but is yet of unknown relevance for clinical practice.

Assessment of Executive Functioning in Patients with Meningioma and Low-Grade Glioma: A Comparison of Self-Report, Proxy-Report, and Test Performance.

Objective: This study aimed to examine: (1) patient-proxy agreement on executive functioning (EF) of patients with primary brain tumors, (2) the relationships between patient- and proxy-report with performance-based measures of EF, and (3) the potential influence of performance-based measures on the level of agreement.

Methods: Meningioma and low-grade glioma patients and their informal caregivers completed the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function (BRIEF-A) 3 months after surgery. The two index scores of the BRIEF-A, Behavioral Regulation and Metacognition, were evaluated.

Task-evoked reconfiguration of the fronto-parietal network is associated with cognitive performance in brain tumor patients.

In healthy participants, the strength of task-evoked network reconfigurations is associated with cognitive performance across several cognitive domains. It is, however, unclear whether the capacity for network reconfiguration also plays a role in cognitive deficits in brain tumor patients. In the current study, we examined whether the level of reconfiguration of the fronto-parietal ('FPN') and default mode network ('DMN') during task execution is correlated with cognitive performance in patients with different types of brain tumors.

Cognitive functioning in glioma patients is related to functional connectivity measures of the non-tumoural hemisphere.

Previous studies have shown that cognitive functioning in patients with brain tumour is associated with the functional network characteristics of specific resting-state networks or with whole-brain network characteristics. These studies, however, did not acknowledge the functional contribution of areas in the contralesional, non-tumoural hemisphere, even though these healthy remote areas likely play a critical role in compensating for the loss of function in damaged tissue. In the current study, we examined whether there is an association between cognitive performance and functional network features of the contralesional hemisphere of patients with glioma.

Cognitive outcomes in meningioma patients undergoing surgery: individual changes over time and predictors of late cognitive functioning.

Background: Meningioma patients are known to face cognitive deficits before and after surgery. We examined individual changes in cognitive performance over time and identified preoperative predictors of cognitive functioning 12 months after surgery in a large sample of meningioma patients.

Methods: Patients underwent neuropsychological assessment (NPA) using CNS Vital Signs 1 day before (T0) and 3 (T3) and 12 (T12) months after surgery.

Lesion symptom mapping at the regional level in patients with a meningioma.

Objective: The majority of meningioma patients suffer from presurgical cognitive deficits. Since meningiomas do not directly damage the brain, this is presumably caused by a functional integrity reduction of the surrounding brain tissue through perilesional edema and/or mass effect of the tumor. Tumor location is a key feature in determining neurological symptoms in brain tumor patients, but the relationship between meningioma location and cognitive performance remains unclear.

"Neural overlap of L1 and L2 semantic representations across visual and auditory modalities: a decoding approach".

This study investigated whether brain activity in Dutch-French bilinguals during semantic access to concepts from one language could be used to predict neural activation during access to the same concepts from another language, in different language modalities/tasks. This was tested using multi-voxel pattern analysis (MVPA), within and across language comprehension (word listening and word reading) and production (picture naming). It was possible to identify the picture or word named, read or heard in one language (e.

Anatomical and functional changes in the brain after simultaneous interpreting training: A longitudinal study.

In the recent literature on bilingualism, a lively debate has arisen about the long-term effects of bilingualism on cognition and the brain. These studies yield inconsistent results, in part because they rely on comparisons between bilingual and monolingual control groups that may also differ on other variables. In the present neuroimaging study, we adopted a longitudinal design, assessing the long-term anatomical and cognitive effects of an extreme form of bilingualism, namely simultaneous interpreting.

Neural overlap of L1 and L2 semantic representations in speech: A decoding approach.

Although research has now converged towards a consensus that both languages of a bilingual are represented in at least partly shared systems for language comprehension, it remains unclear whether both languages are represented in the same neural populations for production. We investigated the neural overlap between L1 and L2 semantic representations of translation equivalents using a production task in which the participants had to name pictures in L1 and L2. Using a decoding approach, we tested whether brain activity during the production of individual nouns in one language allowed predicting the production of the same concepts in the other language.