Examining cognition and brain networks using magnetoencephalography in paediatric autoimmune encephalitis and acute disseminated encephalomyelitis: a preliminary study

Abstract

Paediatric autoimmune encephalitis, including acute disseminated encephalomyelitis, are inflammatory brain diseases presenting with cognitive deficits, psychiatric symptoms, seizures, MRI and EEG abnormalities. Despite improvements in disease recognition and early immunotherapy, long-term outcomes in paediatric autoimmune encephalitis remain poor. Our aim was to understand functional connectivity changes that could be associated with negative developmental outcomes across different types of paediatric autoimmune encephalitis using magnetoencephalography. Participants were children diagnosed with paediatric autoimmune encephalitis at least 18 months before testing and typically developing children. All completed magnetoencephalography recording at rest, T 1 MRI scans and neuropsychology testing. Brain connectivity (specifically in delta and theta) was estimated with amplitude envelope correlation, and network efficiency was measured using graph measures (global efficiency, local efficiency and modularity). Twelve children with paediatric autoimmune encephalitis (11.2 ± 3.5 years, interquartile range 9 years; 5M:7F) and 12 typically developing controls (10.6 ± 3.2 years, interquartile range 7 years; 8M:4F) participated. Children with paediatric autoimmune encephalitis did not differ from controls in working memory ( t(21) = 1.449; P = 0.162; d = 0.605) but had significantly lower processing speed ( t(21) = 2.463; P = 0.023; Cohen's d = 1.028). Groups did not differ in theta network topology measures. The paediatric autoimmune encephalitis group had a significantly lower delta local efficiency across all thresholds tested ( d = -1.60 at network threshold 14%). Theta modularity was associated with lower working memory ( β = -0.781; t(8) = -2.588, P = 0.032); this effect did not survive correction for multiple comparisons ( P(corr) = 0.224). Magnetoencephalography was able to capture specific network alterations in paediatric autoimmune encephalitis patients. This preliminary study demonstrates that magnetoencephalography is an appropriate tool for assessing children with paediatric autoimmune encephalitis and could be associated with cognitive outcomes.

Publication DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/braincomms/fcae248
Divisions: College of Health & Life Sciences > Aston Institute of Health & Neurodevelopment (AIHN)
College of Health & Life Sciences > School of Biosciences
College of Health & Life Sciences > Aston Pharmacy School
College of Health & Life Sciences
College of Health & Life Sciences > School of Psychology
Funding Information: The current study was supported by a European Research Council-Consolidator Grant (ERC-CoG) to A.G.W. (682734) and internal grant funding from the Aston Institute of Health and Neurodevelopment, Aston University to A.G.W. and D.G.-K. D.G.-K. was funded by
Additional Information: Copyright © The Author(s) 2024. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Guarantors of Brain. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Uncontrolled Keywords: neurodevelopment,acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM),autoimmune encephalitis,magnetoencephalography (MEG),NMDAR-Ab encephalitis
Publication ISSN: 2632-1297
Data Access Statement: The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, upon reasonable request. All codes generated for analysis are detailed in Supplementary<br/>Material 3 [http://academic.oup.com/braincomms/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/braincomms/fcae248#supplementary-data]
Last Modified: 07 Oct 2024 07:59
Date Deposited: 14 Aug 2024 11:55
Full Text Link:
Related URLs: https://academi ... fcae248/7729976 (Publisher URL)
PURE Output Type: Article
Published Date: 2024
Published Online Date: 2024-08-08
Accepted Date: 2024-08-07
Authors: Billaud, Charly H. A.
Wood, Amanda G. (ORCID Profile 0000-0002-1537-6858)
Griffiths-King, Daniel (ORCID Profile 0000-0001-5797-9203)
Kessler, Klaus
Wassmer, Evangeline
Foley, Elaine
Wright, Sukhvir K. (ORCID Profile 0000-0002-5464-3779)

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