Large-scale brain networks and intra-axial tumor surgery: a narrative review of functional mapping techniques, critical needs, and scientific opportunities. Front Hum Neurosci 2023;17:1170419
Date
07/31/2023Pubmed ID
37520929Pubmed Central ID
PMC10372448DOI
10.3389/fnhum.2023.1170419Scopus ID
2-s2.0-85165910739 (requires institutional sign-in at Scopus site)Abstract
In recent years, a paradigm shift in neuroscience has been occurring from "localizationism," or the idea that the brain is organized into separately functioning modules, toward "connectomics," or the idea that interconnected nodes form networks as the underlying substrates of behavior and thought. Accordingly, our understanding of mechanisms of neurological function, dysfunction, and recovery has evolved to include connections, disconnections, and reconnections. Brain tumors provide a unique opportunity to probe large-scale neural networks with focal and sometimes reversible lesions, allowing neuroscientists the unique opportunity to directly test newly formed hypotheses about underlying brain structural-functional relationships and network properties. Moreover, if a more complete model of neurological dysfunction is to be defined as a "disconnectome," potential avenues for recovery might be mapped through a "reconnectome." Such insight may open the door to novel therapeutic approaches where previous attempts have failed. In this review, we briefly delve into the most clinically relevant neural networks and brain mapping techniques, and we examine how they are being applied to modern neurosurgical brain tumor practices. We then explore how brain tumors might teach us more about mechanisms of global brain dysfunction and recovery through pre- and postoperative longitudinal connectomic and behavioral analyses.
Author List
Boerger TF, Pahapill P, Butts AM, Arocho-Quinones E, Raghavan M, Krucoff MOAuthors
Elsa V. Arocho-Quinones MD Assistant Professor in the Neurosurgery department at Medical College of WisconsinTimothy F. Boerger LAT Postdoctoral Fellow in the Neurosurgery department at Medical College of Wisconsin
Alissa Butts PhD Associate Professor in the Neurology department at Medical College of Wisconsin
Max O. Krucoff MD Assistant Professor in the Neurosurgery department at Medical College of Wisconsin
Peter A. Pahapill MD, PhD Professor in the Neurosurgery department at Medical College of Wisconsin
Manoj Raghavan MD, PhD Professor in the Neurology department at Medical College of Wisconsin
