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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Aging Neurosci.
Sec. Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementias
Volume 16 - 2024 |
doi: 10.3389/fnagi.2024.1442721
Alteration in temporal-cerebellar effective connectivity can effectively distinguish stable and progressive mild cognitive impairment
Provisionally accepted- Nanjing Brain Hospital Affiliated to Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China
Background Stable mild cognitive impairment (sMCI) and progressive mild cognitive impairment (pMCI) represent two distinct subtypes of mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Early and effective diagnosis and accurate differentiation between sMCI and pMCI are crucial for administering targeted early intervention and preventing cognitive decline. This study investigated the intrinsic dysconnectivity patterns in sMCI and pMCI based on degree centrality (DC) and effective connectivity (EC) analyses, with the goal of uncovering shared and distinct neuroimaging mechanisms between subtypes.Methods Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging combined with DC analysis was used to explore the functional connectivity density in 42 patients with sMCI, 31 patients with pMCI, and 82 healthy control (HC) participants. Granger causality analysis was used to assess changes in EC based on the significant clusters found in DC. Furthermore, correlation analysis was conducted to examine the associations between altered DC/EC values and cognitive function.Receiver operating characteristic curve analysis was performed to determine the accuracy of abnormal DC and EC values in distinguishing sMCI from pMCI.Compared with the HC group, both pMCI and sMCI groups exhibited increased DC in the left inferior temporal gyrus (ITG), left posterior cerebellum lobe (CPL), and right cerebellum anterior lobe (CAL), along with decreased DC in the left medial frontal gyrus. Moreover, the sMCI group displayed reduced EC from the right CAL to bilateral CPL, left superior temporal gyrus, and bilateral caudate compared with HC. pMCI demonstrated elevated EC from the right CAL to left ITG, which was linked to episodic memory and executive function. Notably, the EC from the right CAL to the right ITG effectively distinguished sMCI from pMCI, with sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of 0.5806, 0.9512, and 0.828, respectively.This study uncovered shared and distinct alterations in DC and EC between sMCI and pMCI, highlighting their involvement in cognitive function. Of particular significance are the unidirectional EC disruptions from the cerebellum to the temporal lobe, which serve as a discriminating factor between sMCI and pMCI and provide a new perspective for understanding the temporal-cerebellum. These findings offer novel insights into the neural circuit mechanisms involving the temporal-cerebellum connection in MCI.
Keywords: stable mild cognitive impairment, progressive mild cognitive impairment, Degree centrality, Directed functional connectivity, Resting-State Functional MRI
Received: 02 Jun 2024; Accepted: 20 Aug 2024.
Copyright: © 2024 Xue, Zheng, Ruan, Guo and Hu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Jun Hu, Nanjing Brain Hospital Affiliated to Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China
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