AUTHOR=Berente Dalida Borbala , Zsuffa Janos , Werber Tom , Kiss Mate , Drotos Anita , Kamondi Anita , Csukly Gabor , Horvath Andras Attila 

TITLE=Alteration of Visuospatial System as an Early Marker of Cognitive Decline: A Double-Center Neuroimaging Study

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience

VOLUME=Volume 14 - 2022

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/aging-neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnagi.2022.854368

DOI=10.3389/fnagi.2022.854368

ISSN=1663-4365

ABSTRACT=Amnestic type mild cognitive impairment (a-MCI) represents the prodromal phase of Alzheimer’s disease associating with high conversion rate to dementia and serves as a potential golden period for interventions. In our study, we analyzed the role of visuo-spatial (VS) functions and network in the recognition of a-MCI. We examined 78 participants (32 patients, 46 controls) in double-center arrangement using neuropsychology, structural and resting state functional MRI. We found that imaging of the lateral temporal areas showed strong discriminate power since in patients only the temporal pole (F=5.26, p=0.034) and superior temporal gyrus (F=8.04, p<0.001) showed reduced cortical thickness. We demonstrated significant differences between controls and patients in various neuropsychological results, however; analysis of cognitive subdomains revealed that the largest difference was presented in VS skills (F=8.32, p<0.001). Functional connectivity analysis of VS network showed that patients had weaker connectivity between the left and right frontotemporal areas, while stronger local connectivity was presented between the left frontotemporal structures (FWE corrected p<0.05). Our results highlight the remarkable potential of examining the VS system in the early detection of cognitive decline. Since resting state setting of functional MRI simplifies the possible automatization of data analysis, detection of VS system alterations might provide a non-invasive biomarker of a-MCI.