IMR Press / JIN / Volume 19 / Issue 2 / DOI: 10.31083/j.jin.2020.02.19
Open Access Original Research
Topological properties of the resting-state functional network in nonsyndromic cleft lip and palate children after speech rehabilitation
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1 Department of Radiology, Beijing Children’s Hospital, Capital Medical University, National Center for Children’s Health, Beijing, 100045, P. R. China
2 MR Research China, GE healthcare, Yongchang North Road, Beijing Economic and Technological Development Zone, Beijing, 100176, P. R. China
3 Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Plastic and Trauma Surgery, Center of Cleft Lip and Palate Treatment, Beijing Stomatological Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, 100050, P. R. China
*Correspondence: chenrenji@126.com (Renji Chen); ppengyun@hotmail.com (Yun Peng)
These authors contributed equally.
J. Integr. Neurosci. 2020, 19(2), 285–293; https://doi.org/10.31083/j.jin.2020.02.19
Submitted: 28 January 2020 | Revised: 5 June 2020 | Accepted: 8 June 2020 | Published: 30 June 2020
Copyright: © 2020 Rao et al. Published by IMR press.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC 4.0 license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.
Abstract

Speech therapy has been widely used as an essential therapy for compensatory articulation errors in nonsyndromic cleft lip and palate patients. We sought to identify potential biomarkers of nonsyndromic cleft lip and palate children after speech rehabilitation based on resting-state fMRI and graph theory techniques. We scanned 28 nonsyndromic cleft lip and palate and 28 typically developing children for resting-state fMRI on a 3T MRI scanner. Functional networks were constructed, and their topological properties were obtained for assessing between-group differences (two-sample t-tests). Also, language clear degree scale scores were obtained for correlation analysis with the topological features in nonsyndromic cleft lip and palate patients. Significant between-group differences of local properties were detected in brain regions involved in higher-order language and social cognition. There were no significant correlations between topological feature differences and language clear degree scale scores in nonsyndromic cleft lip and palate patients. Graph theory provided valuable insight into the neurobiological mechanisms of speech rehabilitation in nonsyndromic cleft lip and palate patients. The global network features, small-world index, nodal clustering coefficient, and nodal shortest path length may represent potential imaging biomarkers for the estimation of effective speech rehabilitation.

Keywords
Nonsyndromic cleft lip and palate
speech therapy
resting-state functional MRI
small-world index
graph theory
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