Exploring Effective Connectivity During Unilateral Movement in Stroke Using Structural Equation Modeling

Wan-wa Wong¹, Kai-yu Tong¹, Fei Meng^1,2, Kwok-wing Tang³, Xiaorong Gao², Shangkai Gao², Suk-tak Chan¹

The interactions between brain areas after stroke is thought to be critical information for the exploration of abnormal patterns observed after stroke. Investigation of the interactions will enable us to explore the network in the damaged brain and explain how the adapted network contributes to the functional task. Structural equation modeling (SEM) is an approach to quantify interactions among brain regions based on connectivity models. An automated elaborative SEM analysis together with bootstrapping validation were applied to fMRI data of stroke subjects acquired during unilateral movement using unaffected wrist. Our findings showed that there are a total of 30 significant paths survived after validation test.