Dynamic Functional Connectivity Changes in Cortical and Cortico‐Striatal Strokes in Mice

Description

Mahani and colleagues tracked how brain network connections change over four weeks after two kinds of stroke in mice, asking whether lesion size and location steer the trajectory. Their 2026 study used resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging, which infers connections from synchronized activity. Scans ran at one, two, and four weeks after either a small surface stroke or a larger stroke reaching deep brain structures.

Mahani found opposite patterns. The small cortical stroke triggered over-connection in the first two weeks, with about nine in ten connections strengthened, before partial normalization. The larger cortico-striatal stroke caused widespread under-connection from week one that largely persisted at week four. movement-network connections changed in opposite directions between the models and separated the groups at every time point. Larger lesion involvement meant larger connectivity shifts, suggesting timing and targets for network-rebalancing therapies after stroke.

Catalog record

Source: https://europepmc.org/article/MED/PMC13522393