Abstract
Network analysis has been widely used in studying Alzheimer's disease (AD). However, how the white matter network changes in cognitive impaired patients with subjective cognitive decline (SCD) (a symptom emerging during early stage of AD) and amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) (a pre-dementia stage of AD) is still unclear. Here, structural networks were constructed respectively based on FA and FN for 36 normal controls, 21 SCD patients, and 33 aMCI patients by diffusion tensor imaging and graph theory. Significantly lower efficiency was found in aMCI patients than normal controls (NC). Though not significant, the values in those with SCD were intermediate between aMCI and NC. In addition, our results showed significantly altered betweenness centrality located in right precuneus, calcarine, putamen, and left anterior cingulate in aMCI patients. Furthermore, association was found between network metrics and cognitive impairment. Our study suggests that the structural network properties might be preserved in SCD stage and disrupted in aMCI stage, which may provide novel insights into pathological mechanisms of AD.
Highlights
Alzheimer’s disease (AD), a progressive neurodegenerative disease characterized by memory or other cognitive domain impairments, is the most common type of dementia
We investigated the architecture of white matter networks in patients with Subjective cognitive decline (SCD) and Amnestic Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) (aMCI)
We demonstrated a lower efficiency in aMCI patients compared to normal controls (NC), which indicates a less optimal organization on patients
Summary
Alzheimer’s disease (AD), a progressive neurodegenerative disease characterized by memory or other cognitive domain impairments, is the most common type of dementia. Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is a transient stage between dementia and normal aging. Subjective cognitive decline (SCD) refers to those who have complains about decline in memory or other cognitive functions, but perform normally on cognitive screening [3]. Recent investigations demonstrated that SCD patients show a greater risk developing into MCI or dementia and could predict AD independently [4,5,6,7]. Similar structural or functional alterations have been found in SCD as AD or MCI patients [8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16].
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