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Abstract:
Recent advances in brain connectivity research suggest that the human brain operates as a complex but economic global network. Novel approaches from graph theory have been applied to a variety of neuroimaging studies and have achieved great success. However, the brain network architecture and plasticity patterns vary across different brain developmental periods, learning activities, and disease effects. Translation of descriptive imaging levels into clinical and other exploitation crucially depends on the potential to induce and monitor plastic changes in the network of interest. This special issue is intended to stimulate the continuing efforts in understanding the architecture and plasticity patterns of brain networks. It also aims to broaden the attention not only to the researchers who are currently working on these areas but to the general scientific audience who are interested in the brain structures and functions as well.
This special issue includes eleven papers that presented an up-to-date progress of MR neuroimaging methods on brain network architecture and plasticity investigation employing various neuroimaging modalities: structural MRI, diffusion MRI, and functional MRI. In these papers, there are five studies focused on brain diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease, mild cognitive impairment, mild traumatic brain injury, and major depressive disorder. Two studies investigated the brain plasticity changes after visual or hearing deprivations. Also, there are two studies that assessed volunteers after mediation or cognitive training, and, finally, the remaining two studies are on the methodological development for brain network construction.
