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Published in: European Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging 9/2022

Open Access 24-02-2022 | Alzheimer's Disease | Original Article

Decoupling of regional neural activity and inter-regional functional connectivity in Alzheimer’s disease: a simultaneous PET/MR study

Authors: Somayeh Maleki Balajoo, Farzaneh Rahmani, Reza Khosrowabadi, Chun Meng, Simon B. Eickhoff, Timo Grimmer, Mojtaba Zarei, Alexander Drzezga, Christian Sorg, Masoud Tahmasian

Published in: European Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging | Issue 9/2022

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Abstract

Purpose

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) are characterized by both aberrant regional neural activity and disrupted inter-regional functional connectivity (FC). However, the effect of AD/MCI on the coupling between regional neural activity (measured by regional fluorodeoxyglucose imaging (rFDG)) and inter-regional FC (measured by resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI)) is poorly understood.

Methods

We scanned 19 patients with MCI, 33 patients with AD, and 26 healthy individuals by simultaneous FDG-PET/rs-fMRI and assessed rFDG and inter-regional FC metrics (i.e., clustering coefficient and degree centrality). Next, we examined the potential moderating effect of disease status (MCI or AD) on the link between rFDG and inter-regional FC metrics using hierarchical moderated multiple regression analysis. We also tested this effect by considering interaction between disease status and inter-regional FC metrics, as well as interaction between disease status and rFDG.

Results

Our findings revealed that both rFDG and inter-regional FC metrics were disrupted in MCI and AD. Moreover, AD altered the relationship between rFDG and inter-regional FC metrics. In particular, we found that AD moderated the effect of inter-regional FC metrics of the caudate, parahippocampal gyrus, angular gyrus, supramarginal gyrus, frontal pole, inferior temporal gyrus, middle frontal, lateral occipital, supramarginal gyrus, precuneus, and thalamus on predicting their rFDG. On the other hand, AD moderated the effect of rFDG of the parietal operculum on predicting its inter-regional FC metric.

Conclusion

Our findings demonstrated that AD decoupled the link between regional neural activity and functional segregation and global connectivity across particular brain regions.
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Metadata
Title
Decoupling of regional neural activity and inter-regional functional connectivity in Alzheimer’s disease: a simultaneous PET/MR study
Authors
Somayeh Maleki Balajoo
Farzaneh Rahmani
Reza Khosrowabadi
Chun Meng
Simon B. Eickhoff
Timo Grimmer
Mojtaba Zarei
Alexander Drzezga
Christian Sorg
Masoud Tahmasian
Publication date
24-02-2022
Publisher
Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Published in
European Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging / Issue 9/2022
Print ISSN: 1619-7070
Electronic ISSN: 1619-7089
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00259-022-05692-1

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