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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Luis Peraza RodriguezORCiD, Professor Marcus Kaiser, Professor John-Paul TaylorORCiD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
Objectives and background Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) is the second most common cause of dementia just after Alzheimer’s disease and alterations in the functional connectivity using resting state fMRI (rs-fMRI) have previously been reported in this condition. More broadly, graph theory approaches can be applied to further elucidate how this disease alters brain neuronal communication. In this report we compare rs-fMRI between DLB and Alzheimer’s disease from a network perspective. Methods rs-fMRI images were obtained from DLB (n=16) and Alzheimer’s disease (n=16) patients as well as age matched healthy controls (n=16). DLB and Alzheimer’s patients were cognitively matched (MMSE of 24±3.75 and 23.1±2.46 respectively). Results Alzheimer’s disease patients showed a decrease on important network measures such as small-worldness, a measure related to efficiency and synchronization of neuronal groups. Locally, DLB and Alzheimer’s disease patients showed decreased network efficiency at temporal cortices but in DLB, network efficiency is altered in frontal and parietal regions as well. Other network measures such as average network path length also were significantly different between both dementia groups. DLB patients showed higher average network path length than Alzheimer’s disease patients and control group. Conclusions Network connectivity in fMRI is able to provide reliable markers for the differentiation of these two neurodegenerative diseases, reflecting the different pathophysiological disease trajectories of both conditions manifested by local differences in network topology.
Author(s): Peraza LR, Kaiser M, Taylor J-P
Publication type: Conference Proceedings (inc. Abstract)
Publication status: Published
Conference Name: Parkinson's UK Research Conference
Year of Conference: 2014
Pages: 71
Print publication date: 04/11/2014
Date deposited: 11/11/2014
Publisher: Parkinson's UK
URL: http://www.parkinsons.org.uk/content/parkinsons-uk-research-conference
