Research Article Altered Recruitment of the Attention Network Is Associated with Disability and Cognitive Impairment in Pediatric Patients with Acquired Brain Injury

Copyright © 2015 Sandra Strazzer et al.This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. We assessed abnormalities of brain functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) activity during a sustained attention task (Conners ’ Continuous Performance Test (CCPT)) in 20 right-handed pediatric acquired brain injury (ABI) patients versus 7 right-handed age-matched healthy controls, and we estimated the correlation of such abnormalities with clinical and cognitive deficits. Patients underwent the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC), Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, and Functional Independence Measure (FIM) evaluations. During fMRI, patients and controls activated regions of the attention network. Compared to controls, ABI patients experienced a decreased average fMRI recruitment of the left cerebellum and a decreased deactivation of the left anterior cingulate cortex.With increasing task demand, compared to controls, ABI patients had an impaired ability to increase the recruitment of several posterior regions of the attention network.They also experienced a greater activation of frontal regions, which was correlated with worse performance on FIM, WISC, and fMRI CCPT. Such abnormal brain recruitment was significantly influenced by the type of lesion (focal versus diffuse axonal injury) and time elapsed from the event. Pediatric AB