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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Neurol.
Sec. Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fneur.2025.1503599
Cognitive Implications of White Matter Microstructural Changes in Individuals with Low Heart Rate Variability: A NODDI Study
Provisionally accepted- 1Fujian Medical University Union Hospital, Fuzhou, China
- 2Fujian Medical University, Fuzhou, Fujian Province, China
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Objective: This study aimed to investigated the microstructural integrity of WM and the relationship with the cognitive domains and cognition-related plasma biomarkers in low heart rate variability (HRV). Methods: Our study recruited 44 high HRV and 44 low HRV (Grouping by median of HF). Diffusion Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was utilized for the calculation of neurite orientation dispersion and density imaging (NODDI) parameters, and tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS) were employed to explore differential clusters. The fibers covered by these clusters were defined as regions of interest (ROI) for the extraction of NODDI parameter values and the analysis of their correlation with cognitive domains and cognition-related plasma biomarkers. Results: The TBSS analysis unveiled specific cerebral regions exhibiting disparities within the low HRV group high HRV group. These differences were evident in fractional isotropy (FISO) (p<0.05). The extracted values from these ROIs (p<0.05) were mainly manifested in the anterior regions of the brain and corpus callosum. Further analysis showed that the abnormal white matter (WM) showed significant correlations with CDR, RCFT-I, RCFT-D, attention, memory, language, and cognition-related plasma biomarkers to varying degrees. Conclusion: Patients with low HRV exhibit distinctive patterns of microstructural changes in the WM as revealed by the FISO which indicate a decline in white matter integrity, and the relationship between low HRV-related and worse cognitive performance may be attributed to damage of the frontal-corpus callosum pathways.
Keywords: NODDI, Cognition, Plasma biomarker, MRI, HRV
Received: 29 Sep 2024; Accepted: 14 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Jiang, Cheng, Luo, Jiang, Pan and Xue. 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: Yunjing Xue, Fujian Medical University Union Hospital, Fuzhou, China
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