White matter damage disorganizes brain functional networks in amnestic mild cognitive impairment.
Although progressive functional brain network disruption has been one of the hallmarks of Alzheimer's Disease, little is known about the origin of this functional impairment that underlies cognitive symptoms. We investigated how the loss of white matter (WM) integrity disrupts the organization of the functional networks at different frequency bands. The analyses were performed in a sample of healthy elders and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) subjects. Spontaneous brain magnetic activity (measured with magnetoencephalography) was characterized with phase synchronization analysis, and graph theory was applied to the functional networks. We identified WM areas (using diffusion weighted magnetic resonance imaging) that showed a statistical dependence between the fractional anisotropy and the graph metrics. These regions are part of an episodic memory network and were also related to cognitive functions. Our data support the hypothesis that disruption of the anatomical networks influences the organization at the functional level resulting in the prodromal dementia syndrome of MCI.
['Pineda-Pardo|José Angel|JA|', 'Garcés|Pilar|P|', 'López|María Eugenia|ME|', 'Aurtenetxe|Sara|S|', 'Cuesta|Pablo|P|', 'Marcos|Alberto|A|', 'Montejo|Pedro|P|', 'Yus|Miguel|M|', 'Hernández-Tamames|Juan Antonio|JA|', 'del Pozo|Francisco|F|', 'Becker|James T|JT|', 'Maestú|Fernando|F|']
D000368:Aged D000369:Aged, 80 and over D000647:Amnesia D001921:Brain D001931:Brain Mapping D016022:Case-Control Studies D060825:Cognitive Dysfunction D038524:Diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging D005260:Female D006801:Humans D015225:Magnetoencephalography D008297:Male D009415:Nerve Net D066127:White Matter
mild cognitive impairment magnetoencephalography phase synchronization graph theory diffusion tensor image multimodal integration