Reproducibility of regional structural and functional MRI networks in cerebral small vessel disease compared to age matched and stroke-free controls

Abnormalities in structural and functional MRI connectivity measures have been reported in cerebral small vessel disease (SVD). Previous research has shown that whole-brain structural connectivity was highly reproducible in SVD patients, while whole-brain functional connectivity showed low reproducibility. It remains unclear whether the lower reproducibility of functional networks reported in SVD is due to selective disruption of reproducibility in specific networks or is generalised in patients with SVD. In this case-control study 15 SVD and 10 age-matched control participants were imaged twice with diffusion tensor imaging and resting state fMRI. Structural and functional connectivity matrices were constructed from this data and the default mode, fronto-parietal, limbic, salience, somatomotor and visual networks were extracted and the average connectivity between connections calculated and used to determine their reproducibility. Regional structural networks were more reproducible than functional networks, all structural networks showed ICC values ≥0.64 (except the salience network in SVD). The functional networks showed greater reproducibility in the controls compared to SVD with ICC values >0.7 for control participants and <=0.5 for the SVD group. The default mode network showed the greatest reproducibility for both control and SVD groups. Reproducibility of functional networks was affected by disease status with lower reproducibility in SVD compared with controls.