Between-sex variability of resting state functional brain networks in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)

The organization of brain functional connectivity (FC) has been shown to differ between sexes.

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is characterized by sexual dimorphism, showing sex-specific trends in site of onset, phenotypes, and prognosis.

Here, we explored resting state (RS) FC differences within major large-scale functional networks between women and men in a sample of ALS patients, in comparison to healthy controls (HCs).

A group-level independent component analysis (ICA) was performed on RS-fMRI time-series enabling spatial and spectral analyses of large-scale RS FC networks in 45 patients with ALS (20 F; 25 M) and 31 HCs (15 F; 16 M) with a focus on sex-related differences.

A whole-brain voxel-based morphometry (VBM) was also performed to highlight atrophy differences.

Between-sex comparisons showed: decreased FC in the right middle frontal gyrus and in the precuneus within the default mode network (DMN), in affected men compared to affected women; decreased FC in the right post-central gyrus (sensorimotor network), in the right inferior parietal gyrus (right fronto-parietal network) and increased FC in the anterior cingulate cortex and right insula (salience network), in both affected and non-affected men compared to women.

When comparing affected men to affected women, VBM analysis revealed atrophy in men in the right lateral occipital cortex.

Our results suggest that in ALS sex-related trends of brain functional and structural changes are more heavily represented in DMN and in the occipital cortex, suggesting that sex is an additional dimension of functional and structural heterogeneity in ALS.