Abstract
BackgroundEarly and late mild cognitive impairment (MCI) patients have been reported to have a distinctive prognosis of converting to Alzheimer’s disease.ObjectiveTo evaluate the difference in gray matter volume and assess the association between cognitive function evaluated by comprehensive cognitive function test, and cortical thickness across healthy controls (HCs) (n = 37), early (n = 30), and late MCI patients (n = 35).MethodsDifferences in gray matter volume were evaluated by whole brain voxel-based morphometry across the groups. Multiple regression analysis was used to analyze group by memory performance interactions for the normalized gray matter volume.ResultsThe early MCI group showed reduced gray matter volume in the right middle temporal gyrus in comparison to the HC group. The late MCI group displayed atrophy in the left parahippocampal gyrus in comparison to the HC group. Late MCI patients exhibited a decreased gray matter volume in the left fusiform gyrus in comparison to patients in the early MCI group (Monte Carlo simulation corrected p < 0.01, Tukey post hoc tests). Furthermore, there was a significant group (HC vs. early MCI) by memory performance interaction for the normalized cortical volume of the right middle temporal gyrus. Additionally, a significant group (early MCI vs. late MCI) by memory performance interaction was found for the normalized gray matter volume of the left fusiform gyrus (p < 0.001).ConclusionEarly and late MCI patients showed distinctive associations of gray matter volumes in compensatory brain regions with memory performances. The findings can contribute to a better understanding of the structural changes in compensatory brain regions to elucidate memory decline in the trajectory of the subdivided prodromal stages of the Alzheimer’s disease (AD).
Highlights
Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is a feature of the transitional stage from normal aging to Alzheimer’s disease (AD) (Petersen et al, 2001), which has been reported to progress to dementia at a rate of 10–15% per year (Gauthier et al, 2006)
The aim of this study is to evaluate the difference in gray matter volume by whole brain voxel-based morphometry and to assess the association between cognitive function evaluated by comprehensive cognitive function test, and cortical thickness across cognitively normal older adults, early, and late MCI patients
Subjects classified with late MCI reported memory impairment and had performance scores greater than 1.5 standard deviations (SDs) below the respective age-specific, educationspecific, and sex-specific normative mean on the CERAD-K Word List Recall (WLR)
Summary
Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is a feature of the transitional stage from normal aging to Alzheimer’s disease (AD) (Petersen et al, 2001), which has been reported to progress to dementia at a rate of 10–15% per year (Gauthier et al, 2006). Atrophy has been described to progress at different rates depending on the region of the brain (Schuff et al, 2012) and to follow a sigmoidal shape as a function of time (Sabuncu et al, 2011). Given this AD pathogenesis, cortical changes have been documented to have an association with functional changes in brain and cognitive changes (Buckner et al, 2005). And late mild cognitive impairment (MCI) patients have been reported to have a distinctive prognosis of converting to Alzheimer’s disease
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