Effects of height and growth hormone on the connectivity patterns of resting-state networks in children with GHD

Abstract

Growth hormone deficiency (GHD) can lead to short stature in children and affect brain development, influencing cognition and behavior. Short stature can affect children’s emotional health and motor performance to some extent. Given the role of resting-state networks (RSNs) in maintaining cognitive and behavioral functions, this study investigated the distinct effects of height and GH on RSNs in GHD children by analyzing the changes in functional connectivity patterns of RSNs. We enrolled 31 GHD children, 11 idiopathic short stature (ISS) children, and 15 healthy controls (HC) to assess alterations in functional connectivity patterns of default mode network (DMN), dorsal attention network (DAN), frontal-parietal control network (FPCN), auditory network (AN), sensory motor network (SMN) and visual network (VN). At the nodal integration level, compared with HC, GHD exhibited alterations in FPCN, SMN and VN, while compared with ISS, alterations were in DMN and VN. At the network level, compared with HC, GHD exhibited decreased inter-network connectivity in FPCN-SMN, increased inter-network connectivity in SMN-VN, and reduced intra-network connectivity in AN and VN. Compared with ISS, GHD showed decreased inter-network connectivity in FPCN-DAN and SMN-AN. These results suggest that the synergistic effect of height and GH may affect the motor control function of GHD children by modulating FPCN-SMN and SMN-VN. The independent effect of GH may affect the attention of GHD children by regulating FPCN-DAN, and participate in maintaining the SMN-AN sensory integration pathway. These results could offer new insights into the neural mechanisms of cognitive and behavioral dysfunction in GHD children.