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This study examined whether detailed neuroimaging measures of stroke lesions add meaningful predictive value for cognitive recovery beyond simpler clinical measures, using 408 stroke survivors assessed at hospital admission and six months later. While significant statistical associations were found between lesion characteristics and chronic cognitive impairment across most cognitive domains, these lesion-based measures showed low diagnostic utility with average AUC values of 0.59. Acute cognitive performance at the bedside and markers of pre-existing brain health (regional atrophy) were consistently stronger predictors of six-month cognitive outcomes than detailed lesion anatomy or structural disconnection profiles.
Why it matters
These findings challenge the assumption that sophisticated neuroimaging lesion analysis translates into clinically useful prognostic tools, suggesting that simple bedside cognitive assessments may be sufficient and more practical for predicting long-term cognitive recovery in stroke patients. This has direct implications for clinical resource allocation and the design of prognostic models in stroke rehabilitation.
⚠️ Preprint – Noch nicht peer-reviewed
Dieser Artikel wurde noch nicht von unabhängigen Experten begutachtet. Die Ergebnisse sind vorläufig und sollten mit Vorsicht interpretiert werden.
Lesion anatomy has been widely used to study post stroke cognitive outcomes, but it is unclear whether lesion-based measures provide clinically meaningful prognostic information beyond established predictors. Stroke survivors (n = 408) completed the Oxford Cognitive Screen (OCS) during acute hospitalisation and at chronic (6-month) follow-up. Lesion characteristics and structural disconnection profiles associated with chronic OCS scores were identified using ROI-level, voxel-level and structural network disconnection lesion mapping approaches. The incremental predictive value of these measures, relative to acute behaviour and pre-morbid brain health, was evaluated using regression analyses, receiver operating curve (ROC) and support vector regression (SVR) models predicting continuous chronic scores. Significant lesion and disconnection correlates of chronic cognitive impairment were identified for 9/10 OCS subtests. The extent of damage to these correlates was significantly associated with chronic cognitive scores, but their diagnostic utility for identifying persistent impairment was low under conventional thresholds (AUC mean = 0.59, range= 0.46-0.66). Acute cognitive task performance was the single best predictor of chronic cognition (AUC mean = 0.66, range = 0.4-0.95). In multivariate analyses, SVR models trained on acute cognitive performance and regional atrophy severity scores both outperformed models trained on lesion anatomy or structural disconnection across most cognitive domains. SVR models combining anatomical, disconnection and behavioural predictors did not improve predictions accuracy relative to behaviour or atrophy-only models. Together, these findings demonstrate that statistically significant lesion-outcome relationships do not necessarily translate into clinically useful prognostic indicators. In a large, clinically representative stroke cohort, detailed lesion-based measures provided limited incremental prognostic value beyond acute cognitive assessment and coarse brain health markers. These results highlight the importance of explicitly evaluating predictive utility when developing prognostic models for post-stroke cognitive outcomes.
Source: Neuroimaging and behavioural biomarkers of post-stroke cognitive recovery outcomes