Aberrant Brain Regional Homogeneity and Functional Connectivity of Entorhinal Cortex in Vascular Mild Cognitive Impairment: A Resting-State Functional MRI Study.

Meimei Zuo,Dongfang Li,Man Li,Xiuqin Jia,Yanhui Yang,Xiaomin Zhang,Yanqing Han,Jinliang Niu,Yi Xu

doi:10.3389/fneur.2018.01177

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate changes in regional homogeneity (ReHo) and the functional connectivity of the entorhinal cortex (EC) in vascular mild cognitive impairment (VaMCI) and to evaluate the relationships between such changes and neuropsychological measures in VaMCI individuals. In all, 31 patients with VaMCI and 32 normal controls (NCs) underwent rs-fMRI. Differences in whole-brain ReHo and seed-based bilateral EC functional connectivity (EC-FC) were determined. Pearson's correlation was used to evaluate the relationships between regions with significant group differences and different neuropsychological measures. Vascular mild cognitive impairment (VaMCI) patients had lower scores in Mini-mental State Examination (MMSE) and Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) and higher ones in Activity of Daily Living (ADL) (p < 0.05). Vascular mild cognitive impairment (VaMCI) individuals had significantly lower ReHo in the left cerebellum and right lentiform nucleus than NCs (P < 0.05, TFCE FWE correction). Vascular mild cognitive impairment (VaMCI) subjects showed significant decreases in the FC of the right EC in the right inferior frontal gyrus, right middle frontal gyrus, bilateral pre-central gyrus, and right post-central/superior parietal lobules (P < 0.05, TFCE FWE correction). Significant positive correlations were found between ReHo and MoCA scores for the right lentiform nucleus (r = 0.37, P < 0.05). The right post-central/superior parietal lobules showed a significant positive correlation between right EC-FC and MoCA scores (r = 0.37, P < 0.05). Patterns in ReHo and EC-FC changes in VaMCI patients and their correlations with neuropsychological measures may be a pathophysiological foundation of cognitive impairment, which may aid the early diagnosis of VaMCI.

Highlights

Role of brain regions that are significantly related to cognitive function, such as the entorhinal cortex (EC)
We took a coronal scanning to exclude the patients with hippocampal atrophy; patients themselves or their families complain of a decline in cognition, with such symptoms of cognitive decline lasting for at least 6 months and having a fluctuating course; damage to cognitive function and risk factors of cerebrovascular disease are directly related to cerebrovascular disease; activity of daily living (ADL) is normal or near normal with a ADL score
The differences in regional homogeneity (ReHo) values between the NC and vascular mild cognitive impairment (VaMCI) group are shown in Figure 1 and Table 2

Summary

Introduction

Role of brain regions that are significantly related to cognitive function, such as the entorhinal cortex (EC). Resting state functional MRI (rs-fMRI), which has been established as a useful non-invasive technique for determining how structurally segregated and functionally specialized cerebral centers are interconnected, has been receiving increased attention in brain science research in recent years and is widely used in the study of diseases of cognitive impairment [5,6,7]. For FC analysis, the choice of regions of interest (ROI) is not always the same previous studies mainly focus on the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) connectivity and its crucial role in cognitive function and memory. Deng et al found that the patients with VaMCI exhibited altered ReHo in ACC-FC in some regions, and decreases in the left pre-central gyrus [13].

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