Alteration in brain connectivity in patients with Dravet syndrome after vagus nerve stimulation (VNS): exploration of its effectiveness using graph theory analysis with electroencephalography
Wang ZJ, Kim ES, Noh BH, Liang JG, Lee D, Hur YJ, Kim NY, Kim HD.
J Neural Eng. 2020 Jun 22;17(3):036014.
https://doi.org/10.1088/1741-2552/ab914f.
Vagus nerve stimulation (#VNS) may change brain connectivity for patients with Dravet syndrome (#DS). Thus, in line with our current theme-VNS in DS, we would like to highlight a study by Wang et al. (Jun. 2020) examining potential alterations in brain connectivity of patients with DS, undergoing VNS treatment (follow-up duration: 24 months), by graph theory analysis with electroencephalography (#EEG).
In brief, the study results indicate: 1) VNS may significantly and rapidly affect brain connectivity in alpha and beta bands already after a 6-month short-term treatment; 2) VNS might downregulate the brain network transitivity of the responders during long-term treatment; 3) noteworthy, hubs with high values in the alpha band shifted from frontal lobe to parietal lobe in VNS responders.
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