scholarly journals Brain Network Alterations in Alzheimer’s Disease Identified by Early-Phase PIB-PET

2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liping Fu ◽  
Linwen Liu ◽  
Jinming Zhang ◽  
Baixuan Xu ◽  
Yong Fan ◽  
...  

The aim of this study was to identify the brain networks from early-phase 11C-PIB (perfusion PIB, pPIB) data and to compare the brain networks of patients with differentiating Alzheimer’s disease (AD) with cognitively normal subjects (CN) and of mild cognitively impaired patients (MCI) with CN. Forty participants (14 CN, 12 MCI, and 14 AD) underwent 11C-PIB and 18F-FDG PET/CT scans. Parallel independent component analysis (pICA) was used to identify correlated brain networks from the 11C-pPIB and 18F-FDG data, and a two-sample t-test was used to evaluate group differences in the corrected brain networks between AD and CN, and between MCI and CN. Our study identified a brain network of perfusion (early-phase 11C-PIB) that highly correlated with a glucose metabolism (18F-FDG) brain network and colocalized with the default mode network (DMN) in an AD-specific neurodegenerative cohort. Particularly, decreased 18F-FDG uptake correlated with a decreased regional cerebral blood flow in the frontal, parietal, and temporal regions of the DMN. The group comparisons revealed similar spatial patterns of the brain networks derived from the 11C-pPIB and 18F-FDG data. Our findings indicate that 11C-pPIB derived from the early-phase 11C-PIB could provide complementary information for 18F-FDG examination in AD.

Author(s):  
A. Thushara ◽  
C. Ushadevi Amma ◽  
Ansamma John

Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) is basically a progressive neurodegenerative disorder associated with abnormal brain networks that affect millions of elderly people and degrades their quality of life. The abnormalities in brain networks are due to the disruption of White Matter (WM) fiber tracts that connect the brain regions. Diffusion-Weighted Imaging (DWI) captures the brain’s WM integrity. Here, the correlation betwixt the WM degeneration and also AD is investigated by utilizing graph theory as well as Machine Learning (ML) algorithms. By using the DW image obtained from Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) database, the brain graph of each subject is constructed. The features extracted from the brain graph form the basis to differentiate between Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI), Control Normal (CN) and AD subjects. Performance evaluation is done using binary and multiclass classification algorithms and obtained an accuracy that outperforms the current top-notch DWI-based studies.


Entropy ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 300 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shuaizong Si ◽  
Bin Wang ◽  
Xiao Liu ◽  
Chong Yu ◽  
Chao Ding ◽  
...  

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a progressive disease that causes problems of cognitive and memory functions decline. Patients with AD usually lose their ability to manage their daily life. Exploring the progression of the brain from normal controls (NC) to AD is an essential part of human research. Although connection changes have been found in the progression, the connection mechanism that drives these changes remains incompletely understood. The purpose of this study is to explore the connection changes in brain networks in the process from NC to AD, and uncovers the underlying connection mechanism that shapes the topologies of AD brain networks. In particular, we propose a mutual information brain network model (MINM) from the perspective of graph theory to achieve our aim. MINM concerns the question of estimating the connection probability between two cortical regions with the consideration of both the mutual information of their observed network topologies and their Euclidean distance in anatomical space. In addition, MINM considers establishing and deleting connections, simultaneously, during the networks modeling from the stage of NC to AD. Experiments show that MINM is sufficient to capture an impressive range of topological properties of real brain networks such as characteristic path length, network efficiency, and transitivity, and it also provides an excellent fit to the real brain networks in degree distribution compared to experiential models. Thus, we anticipate that MINM may explain the connection mechanism for the formation of the brain network organization in AD patients.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Rasero ◽  
C. Alonso-Montes ◽  
I. Diez ◽  
L. Olabarrieta-Landa ◽  
L. Remaki ◽  
...  

AbstractAlzheimer’s disease (AD) is a chronically progressive neurodegenerative disease highly correlated to aging. Whether AD originates by targeting a localized brain area and propagates to the rest of the brain across disease-severity progression is a question with an unknown answer. Here, we aim to provide an answer to this question at the group-level by looking at differences in diffusion-tensor brain networks. In particular, making use of data from Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI), four different groups were defined (all of them matched by age, sex and education level): G1 (N1=36, healthy control subjects, Control), G2 (N2=36, early mild cognitive impairment, EMCI), G3 (N3=36, late mild cognitive impairment, LMCI) and G4 (N4=36, AD). Diffusion-tensor brain networks were compared across three disease stages: stage I 3(Control vs EMCI), stage II (Control vs LMCI) and stage III (Control vs AD). The group comparison was performed using the multivariate distance matrix regression analysis, a technique that was born in genomics and was recently proposed to handle brain functional networks, but here applied to diffusion-tensor data. The results were three-fold: First, no significant differences were found in stage I. Second, significant differences were found in stage II in the connectivity pattern of a subnetwork strongly associated to memory function (including part of the hippocampus, amygdala, entorhinal cortex, fusiform gyrus, inferior and middle temporal gyrus, parahippocampal gyrus and temporal pole). Third, a widespread disconnection across the entire AD brain was found in stage III, affecting more strongly the same memory subnetwork appearing in stage II, plus the other new subnetworks,including the default mode network, medial visual network, frontoparietal regions and striatum. Our results are consistent with a scenario where progressive alterations of connectivity arise as the disease severity increases and provide the brain areas possibly involved in such a degenerative process. Further studies applying the same strategy to longitudinal data are needed to fully confirm this scenario.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emma Muñoz-Moreno ◽  
Raúl Tudela ◽  
Xavier López-Gil ◽  
Guadalupe Soria

ABSTRACTThe research of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) in their early stages and its progression till symptomatic onset is essential to understand the pathology and investigate new treatments. Animal models provide a helpful approach to this research, since they allow for controlled follow-up during the disease evolution. In this work, transgenic TgF344-AD rats were longitudinally evaluated starting at 6 months of age. Every 3 months, cognitive abilities were assessed by a memory-related task and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was acquired. Structural and functional brain networks were estimated and characterized by graph metrics to identify differences between the groups in connectivity, its evolution with age, and its influence on cognition. Structural networks of transgenic animals were altered since the earliest stage. Likewise, aging significantly affected network metrics in TgF344-AD, but not in the control group. In addition, while the structural brain network influenced cognitive outcome in transgenic animals, functional network impacted how control subjects performed. TgF344-AD brain network alterations were present from very early stages, difficult to identify in clinical research. Likewise, the characterization of aging in these animals, involving structural network reorganization and its effects on cognition, opens a window to evaluate new treatments for the disease.AUTHOR SUMMARYWe have applied magnetic resonance image based connectomics to characterize TgF344-AD rats, a transgenic model of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). This represents a highly translational approach, what is essential to investigate potential treatments. TgF344-AD animals were evaluated from early to advanced ages to describe alterations in brain connectivity and how brain networks are affected by age. Results showed that aging had a bigger impact in the structural connectivity of the TgF344-AD than in control animals, and that changes in the structural network, already observed at early ages, significantly influenced cognitive outcome of transgenic animals. Alterations in connectivity were similar to the described in AD human studies, and complement them providing insights into earlier stages and a plot of AD effects throughout the whole life span.


Author(s):  
Bhuvaneshwari Bhaskaran ◽  
Kavitha Anandan

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a progressive brain disorder which has a long preclinical phase. The beta-amyloid plaques and tangles in the brain are considered as the main pathological causes. Functional connectivity is typically examined in capturing brain network dynamics in AD. A definitive underconnectivity is observed in patients through the progressive stages of AD. Graph theoretic modeling approaches have been effective in understanding the brain dynamics. In this article, the brain connectivity patterns and the functional topology through the progression of Alzheimer's disease are analysed using resting state fMRI. The altered network topology is analysed by graphed theoretical measures and explains cognitive deficits caused by the progression of this disease. Results show that the functional topology is disrupted in the default mode network regions as the disease progresses in patients. Further, it is observed that there is a lack of left lateralization involving default mode network regions as the severity in AD increases.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luis R. Peraza ◽  
Ruth Cromarty ◽  
Xenia Kobeleva ◽  
Michael J. Firbank ◽  
Alison Killen ◽  
...  

AbstractDementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) and Alzheimer’s disease (AD) require differential management despite presenting with symptomatic overlap. A human electrophysiological difference is a decrease of dominant frequency (DF) −the highest power frequency between 4-15Hz– in DLB; a characteristic of Parkinsonian diseases. We analysed electroencephalographic (EEG) recordings from old adults: healthy controls (HCs), AD, DLB and Parkinson’s disease dementia (PDD) patients. Brain networks were assessed with the minimum spanning tree (MST) within six EEG bands: delta, theta, high-theta, alpha, beta and DF. Patients showed lower alpha band connectivity and lower DF than HCs. Lewy body dementias showed a randomised MST compared with HCs and AD in high-theta and alpha but not within the DF. The MST randomisation in DLB and PDD reflects decreased brain efficiency as well as impaired neural synchronisation. However, the lack of network topology differences at the DF indicates a compensatory response of the brain to the neuropathology.


Author(s):  
Bhuvaneshwari Bhaskaran ◽  
Kavitha Anandan

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a progressive brain disorder which has a long preclinical phase. The beta-amyloid plaques and tangles in the brain are considered as the main pathological causes. Functional connectivity is typically examined in capturing brain network dynamics in AD. A definitive underconnectivity is observed in patients through the progressive stages of AD. Graph theoretic modeling approaches have been effective in understanding the brain dynamics. In this article, the brain connectivity patterns and the functional topology through the progression of Alzheimer's disease are analysed using resting state fMRI. The altered network topology is analysed by graphed theoretical measures and explains cognitive deficits caused by the progression of this disease. Results show that the functional topology is disrupted in the default mode network regions as the disease progresses in patients. Further, it is observed that there is a lack of left lateralization involving default mode network regions as the severity in AD increases.


2004 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 504-512 ◽  
Author(s):  
JULIE A. TESTA ◽  
ROBERT J. IVNIK ◽  
BRADLEY BOEVE ◽  
RONALD C. PETERSEN ◽  
V. SHANE PANKRATZ ◽  
...  

As the incidence of dementia increases, there is a growing need to determine the diagnostic utility of specific neuropsychological tests in the early diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease (AD). In this study, the relative utility of Boston Naming Test (BNT) in the diagnosis of AD was examined and compared to the diagnostic utility of other neuropsychological measures commonly used in the evaluation of AD. Individuals with AD (n = 306), Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI; n = 67), and cognitively normal subjects (n = 409) with at least 2 annual evaluations were included. Logistic regression analysis suggested that initial BNT impairment is associated with increased risk of subsequent AD diagnosis. However, this risk is significantly less than that imparted by measures of delayed recall impairments. A multivariate Cox proportional hazards regression analysis suggested that BNT impairment imparted no additional risk for subsequent AD diagnosis after delayed recall impairments were included in the model. Although BNT impairment occurred in all severity groups, it was ubiquitous only in moderate to severe dementia. Collectively these results suggest that although BNT impairments become more common as AD progresses, they are neither necessary for the diagnosis of AD nor particularly useful in identifying early AD. (JINS, 2004, 10, 504–512.)


Brain ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 138 (9) ◽  
pp. 2701-2715 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jon B. Toledo ◽  
Henrik Zetterberg ◽  
Argonde C. van Harten ◽  
Lidia Glodzik ◽  
Pablo Martinez-Lage ◽  
...  

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