Indja B, Fanning JP, Maller JJ, Fraser JF, Bannon PG, Vallely M, Grieve SM
Br J Anaesth 2017 May;118(5):680-688
PMID: 28510745
Abstract
Cognitive dysfunction is a poorly understood but potentially devastating complication of cardiac surgery. Clinically meaningful assessment of cognitive changes after surgery is problematic because of the absence of a means to obtain reproducible, objective, and quantitative measures of the neural disturbances that cause altered brain function. By using both structural and functional connectivity magnetic resonance imaging data to construct a map of the inter-regional connections within the brain, connectomics has the potential to increase the specificity and sensitivity of perioperative neurological assessment, permitting rational individualized assessment and improvement of surgical techniques.