Yan Fang1, Luo Ouyang1, Cybeles
Onuegbulem2, Aman Goyal1, Lei Jiang1, Parina
Gandhi1, Sandeep Ganji1, Wendy Ringe2,
Kaundinya Gopinath1,3, Richard Briggs1,3, Robert Haley3
1Department of Radiology, UT
Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, United States; 2Department
of Psychiatry, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, United States; 3Department
of Internal Medicine, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, United
States
Memory
loss is a common complaint among veterans with Gulf War Illness (GWI), and
preliminary studies have documented hippocampal dysfunction in GWI. Abnormal
functional connectivity to hippocampus has also been observed in various
other diseased populations. This study used resting state or functional
connectivity MRI (fcMRI) to examine functional connectivity of the
hippocampus in GWI subjects. GWI veterans exhibited significantly reduced
connectivity to left and right hippocampal body in a number of brain regions,
indicating disruption of hippocampal networks and/or damage to hippocampus in
GWI.