What question did this study set out to answer?

To examine regional brain neural activity changes in adolescents with single ventricle heart disease compared to healthy controls.

January 10, 2026Pediatric Cardiology0 citationsOpen Access

Neural Changes in Adolescents with Single Ventricle Congenital Heart Disease

KSKamal R. SinghUniversity of California, Los Angeles NPNancy Alice Pike DKDiana E. KosoyanUniversity of California, Los Angeles

Key Result

Adolescents with single ventricle congenital heart disease exhibited reduced neural synchronization in key brain regions compared to healthy controls.

Key Points

To examine regional brain neural activity changes in adolescents with single ventricle heart disease compared to healthy controls.
Collected resting fMRI data from 27 adolescents with SVHD and 31 healthy controls.
Utilized a 3.0-Tesla MRI scanner for data acquisition.
Computed regional homogeneity (ReHo) maps and transformed them to z-scored maps.
Applied ANCOVA with age and sex as covariates to compare groups.
Reduced ReHo observed in brain areas including the caudate, parietal cortex, frontal cortex, and amygdala in SVHD subjects.
Increased ReHo found in areas such as the parietal cortex, insula, cerebellar vermis, hippocampus, para-hippocampal gyrus, and cerebellar cortex in SVHD compared to controls.
Findings indicate impaired neural synchronization in brain regions linked to cognition and mood.

Structured PICO

Population

58 adolescents (27 with single ventricle heart disease [SVHD] and 31 healthy controls), mean age 15.6-15.8 years, recruited from Los Angeles area pediatric cardiology clinics. Exclusions: claustrophobia, non-removable metal, severe developmental delays, preterm delivery (gestation <37 weeks), and use of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO).

Comparator

31 healthy controls with no self-reported chronic medical or mental health conditions, or prior incidents of head trauma.

Outcome

Regional brain neural activity changes measured by regional homogeneity (ReHo) using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).surrogate

Adolescents with single ventricle heart disease exhibit impaired resting-state neural synchronization in brain regions associated with neurobehavior and cognition, which correlates with observed cognitive and mood deficits.

Main Result

Absolute Event Rate: 0% vs 0%

Abstract

Abstract Single ventricle heart disease (SVHD) adolescents show brain tissue injury in sites that mediate autonomic, mood, and cognition functions deficient in the condition, which may result from impaired neural interactions at resting state. However, it is unclear whether SVHD subjects have aberrant neural activities in those areas that can be examined with regional homogeneity (ReHo) measures, assessing local neural synchronization. We aimed to examine regional brain neural activity changes in SVHD compared to healthy controls using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Resting fMRI data were collected from 27 SVHD and 31 controls using a 3.0-Tesla MRI scanner. Using the standard pre-processing steps, ReHo maps were calculated and transformed to z-scored maps, normalized to a common space, smoothed, and compared between groups (ANCOVA; qFDR corrected p ≤ 0.05; covariates: age and sex). Reduced ReHo appeared in brain sites, including the caudate, parietal cortex, frontal cortex, and amygdala, and increased ReHo emerged in the parietal cortex, insula, cerebellar vermis, hippocampus, para-hippocampal gyrus, cerebellar peduncles, and cerebellar cortex in SVHD over controls. SVHD adolescents show impaired neural synchronization at resting in areas involved in neurobehavior and cognition. The findings indicate the widespread impact on brain functional organization and may explain functional deficits observed in SVHD.

Ask AI

Helpful

Bookmark

View Full Paper