Clinical relevance of disrupted topological organization of anatomical connectivity in behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia

Abstract

AbstractBackgroundAbnormalities of neurodegenerative disease are not only involved in individual brain regions but also characterized by the alterations of a balance of connectomes. Graph theory is a novel approach to examine the balance of connectomes. However, the clinical relevance of white matter connectome changes in behavioral variant of frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) is not well understood.MethodsIn this study, we used DTI image data from 24 patients with bvFTD and 28 normal controls to exploratory investigate the clinical relevance of white matter topological alterations.ResultsThe topological organization was disrupted in patients with bvFTD both globally and locally, some of which were correlated with the severity of behavior symptoms reflected as frontal behavior inventory (FBI), clinical statuses including the mini‐mental state examination (MMSE) and frontotemporal lobar degeneration‐clinical dementia rating scale (FTLD‐CDR). Notably, the nodal parameters of the lost hub regions including bilateral dorsolateral superior frontal gyrus, right orbital inferior frontal gyrus, left insula and left anterior cingulate gyrus were associated with the severity of cognitive and behavioral symptoms.ConclusionTopological measures would be a potential marker to explore the disease severity, mapping the large‐scale structural connectome of the brain will help to understand emergent cognitive behaviors in the disease condition of bvFTD.