MEG activity of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex during optic flow stimulations detects mild cognitive impairment due to Alzheimer's disease.

Moeko Noguchi-Shinohara,Kiwamu Kudo,Hirofumi Morise,Yoshihisa Ikeda,Chiemi Abe,Junji Komatsu,Masato Koike,Shoko Tsuchimine,Sachiko Kitagawa,Masahito Yamada,Kensaku Kasuga

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0259677

Abstract

Dorsal stream, which has a neuronal connection with dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), is known to be responsible for detection of motion including optic flow perception. Using magnetoencephalography (MEG), this study aimed to examine neural responses to optic flow stimuli with looming motion in the DLPFC in patients with mild cognitive impairment due to Alzheimer’s disease (AD-MCI) compared with cognitively unimpaired participants (CU). We analyzed the neural responses by evaluating maximum source-localized power for the AD-MCI group (n = 11) and CU (n = 20), focusing on six regions of interest (ROIs) that form the DLPFC: right and left dorsal Brodmann area 9/46 (A9/46d), Brodmann area 46 (A46) and ventral Brodmann area 9/46 (A9/46v). We found significant differences in the maximum power between the groups in the left A46 and A9/46v. Moreover, in the left A9/46v, the maximum power significantly correlated with the Wechsler Memory Scale-Revised general memory score and delayed recall score. The maximum power in the left A9/46v also revealed high performance in AD-MCI versus CU classification with the area under the ROC curve of 0.90. This study demonstrated that MEG during the optic flow task can be useful in discriminating AD-MCI from CU.

Highlights

Patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) commonly have visuospatial problems [1], which can impair the activities of daily living [2]
We demonstrated that the mild cognitive impairment due to Alzheimer’s disease (AD-mild cognitive impairment (MCI)) group showed significantly higher maximum power than that of the cognitively unimpaired participants (CU) group in the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) during the optic flow task
No significant differences were observed in the neural responses to optic flow stimuli in the posterior parietal cortex (PPC) between AD-MCI and CU groups, the increased activity of the DLPFC was negatively correlated with higher cognitive function in our study

Summary

Introduction

Patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) commonly have visuospatial problems [1], which can impair the activities of daily living [2]. Motion perception such as looming is important for adapting behavior in an environment, it is essential to raise awareness about these issues early to maintain safe living. MEG activity of the DLPFC during optic flow stimulations detects MCI due to AD. Health Science (to M.Y) from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript

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