Self-Referential Processing and Resting-State Functional MRI Connectivity of Cortical Midline Structures in Glioma Patients

Brain Sciences, vol. 12, pp. 1463

Abstract

Metacognition has only scarcely been investigated in brain tumor patients. It is unclear if and how the tumor-lesioned brain might be able to maintain an adequate sense-of-self. As cortical midline structures (CMS) are regarded as essential for self-referential mental activity, we investigated resting-state fMRI connectivity (FC) of CMS to the default-mode network (DMN) and to the whole brain, comparing glioma patients and matched controls. Subjects furthermore performed a trait judgement (TJ), a trait recall task (TR), and neuropsychological testing. In the TJ, adjectives had to be ascribed as self- or non-self-describing, assessing the self-serving effect (SSE), a normally observed bias for positive traits. In the TR, the mnemic neglect effect (MNE), a memory advantage for positive traits, was tested. The groups were compared and partial correlations between FC and test metrics were analyzed. Although patients were significantly impaired in terms of verbal memory, groups did not differ in the SSE or the MNE results, showing preserved metacognitive abilities in patients. FC of CMS to the DMN was maintained, but was significantly decreased to whole brain in the patients. FC of the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (DMPFC) to whole brain was correlated with the MNE in patients. Preserving the DMPFC in therapeutic interventions might be relevant for maintaining self-related verbal information processing in the memory domain in glioma patients.

Authors 4

1. Kerstin Jütten Aachen Department of Neurosurgery

   RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   Department of Neurosurgery, RWTH Aachen University, 52074 Aachen, Germany

2. Saskia Doreen Forster Aachen Institute of Medical Psychology and Medical Sociology

   RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   Institute of Medical Psychology and Medical Sociology, RWTH Aachen University, 52074 Aachen, Germany

3. Hans Clusmann Aachen Department of Neurosurgery

   RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   Center for Integrated Oncology Aachen Bonn Cologne Duesseldorf (CIO ABCD), 52074 Aachen, Germany

   Department of Neurosurgery, RWTH Aachen University, 52074 Aachen, Germany

4. Verena Mainz Aachen Institute of Medical Psychology and Medical Sociology

   RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   Institute of Medical Psychology and Medical Sociology, RWTH Aachen University, 52074 Aachen, Germany