Journal
PSYCHIATRY RESEARCH-NEUROIMAGING
Volume 202, Issue 2, Pages 118-125Publisher
ELSEVIER IRELAND LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.pscychresns.2012.03.002
Keywords
Alzheimer's disease; Mild cognitive impairment; Functional MRI; Small-world network; Nodal centrality
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Funding
- Chinese Academy of Sciences [KGCX2-YW-129]
- Fundamental Research Funds for the Central University
- Beijing Nova program [Z111101054511116]
- Project for the National Key Basic Research and Development Program (973) [2011CB707700, 2007CB512500, 2007CB512503, 2009CB521905]
- National Natural Science Foundation of China [81071137, 81071217]
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Recent studies have shown that cognitive and memory decline in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) is coupled with losses of small-world attributes. However, few studies have investigated the characteristics of the whole brain networks in individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). In this functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, we investigated the topological properties of the whole brain networks in 18 AD patients, 16 MCI patients, and 18 age-matched healthy subjects. Among the three groups, AD patients showed the longest characteristic path lengths and the largest clustering coefficients, while the small-world measures of MCI networks exhibited intermediate values. The finding was not surprising, given that MCI is considered to be the prodromal stage of AD. Compared with normal controls, MCI patients showed decreased nodal centrality mainly in the medial temporal lobe as well as increased nodal centrality in the occipital regions. In addition, we detected increased nodal centrality in the medial temporal lobe and frontal gyrus, and decreased nodal centrality mainly in the amygdala in MCI patients compared with AD patients. The results suggested a widespread rewiring in AD and MCI patients. These findings concerning AD and MCI may be an integrated reflection of reorganization of the brain networks accompanied with the cognitive decline that may lead to AD. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.
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