Alterations of electrocortical activity during hand movements induced by motor cortex glioma

TL;DR

This study investigates how glioma infiltrates the motor cortex and disrupts electrocortical activity during finger movements, revealing alterations in neural synchronization and encoding patterns that impact motor function.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the functional invasion of glioma in the motor cortex and its effects on neural activity during movement tasks.

Findings

Glioma suppresses high-gamma synchronization during finger movements.

Glioma reduces power across all frequency bands in electrocortical signals.

Disrupted neural encoding patterns impair motor information transmission.

Abstract

Glioma cells can reshape functional neuronal networks by hijacking neuronal synapses, leading to partial or complete neurological dysfunction. These mechanisms have been previously explored for language functions. However, the impact of glioma on sensorimotor functions is still unknown. Therefore, we recruited a control group of patients with unaffected motor cortex and a group of patients with glioma-infiltrated motor cortex, and recorded high-density electrocortical signals during finger movement tasks. The results showed that glioma suppresses task-related synchronization in the high-gamma band and reduces the power across all frequency bands. The resulting atypical motor information transmission model with discrete signaling pathways and delayed responses disrupts the stability of neuronal encoding patterns for finger movement kinematics across various temporal-spatial scales. These findings demonstrate that gliomas functionally invade neural circuits within the motor cortex. This result advances our understanding of motor function processing in chronic disease states, which is important to advance the surgical strategies and neurorehabilitation approaches for patients with malignant gliomas.