TY  - JOUR
AU  - Liu, Jinlong
AU  - Krauss, Jonas
AU  - Purrer, Veronika
AU  - Borger, Valeri
AU  - Essler, Markus
AU  - Radbruch, Alexander
AU  - Wüllner, Ullrich
AU  - Upadhyay, Neeraj
AU  - Boecker, Henning
TI  - Functional network reorganization following VIM-MRgFUS for essential tremor.
JO  - Neurotherapeutics
VL  - 23
IS  - 2
SN  - 1933-7213
CY  - [Amsterdam]
PB  - Elsevier B.V.
M1  - DZNE-2026-00361
SP  - e00864
PY  - 2026
AB  - Magnetic resonance-guided focused ultrasound (MRgFUS) is a promising, noninvasive therapeutic approach for essential tremor (ET), yet the effects of the respective lesions on functional brain network organization remain poorly understood. Here, we performed graph theory analysis to investigate changes in small-world properties and modular architecture in ET patients six months after unilateral MRgFUS of the thalamic ventral intermediate (VIM) nucleus. Small-worldness and normalized clustering coefficient increased significantly after MRgFUS, while clustering coefficient, characteristic path length, normalized characteristic path length, global efficiency, and local efficiency remained unchanged. Modular organization was largely preserved, but trend-level enhancements in inter-modular connectivity were observed between frontoparietal and subcortical modules, as well as between frontoparietal and frontotemporal-parietal modules. Within these modules, betweenness centrality increased significantly in specific cortical hubs, including the left superior frontal gyrus, right superior parietal lobule, and left postcentral gyrus. These findings indicate that unilateral VIM-MRgFUS induces selective functional network reorganization, particularly affecting relative clustering and nodal centrality patterns.
KW  - Humans
KW  - Essential Tremor: diagnostic imaging
KW  - Essential Tremor: therapy
KW  - Essential Tremor: physiopathology
KW  - Essential Tremor: surgery
KW  - Male
KW  - Female
KW  - Magnetic Resonance Imaging: methods
KW  - Middle Aged
KW  - Aged
KW  - Ventral Thalamic Nuclei: diagnostic imaging
KW  - Ventral Thalamic Nuclei: surgery
KW  - Nerve Net: diagnostic imaging
KW  - Brain networks (Other)
KW  - Essential tremor (Other)
KW  - Graph theory analysis (Other)
KW  - MRgFUS (Other)
KW  - Ventral intermediate nucleus (Other)
LB  - PUB:(DE-HGF)16
C6  - pmid:41764014
C2  - pmc:PMC12993401
DO  - DOI:10.1016/j.neurot.2026.e00864
UR  - https://pub.dzne.de/record/285915
ER  -