Functional Connectivity and Complexity in the Phenomenological Model of Mild Cognitive-Impaired Alzheimer's Disease

• Published in: Frontiers in computational neuroscience Vol. 16; p. 877912
• Main Authors: Das, Surya, Puthankattil, Subha D.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Lausanne Frontiers Research Foundation 06.06.2022; Frontiers Media S.A
• Subjects: Alzheimer's disease; Brain; Cognitive ability; complexity; Decomposition; Dementia; EEG; Electroencephalography; Entropy; functional connectivity; Hypotheses; Kuramoto model; Lesions; MCI-AD; Neural networks; Neurodegenerative diseases; Neuroscience; Older people; Wavelet transforms
• ISSN: 1662-5188; 1662-5188
• DOI: 10.3389/fncom.2022.877912

Background Functional connectivity and complexity analysis has been discretely studied to understand intricate brain dynamics. The current study investigates the interplay between functional connectivity and complexity using the Kuramoto mean-field model. Method Functional connectivity matrices are estimated using the weighted phase lag index and complexity measures through popularly used complexity estimators such as Lempel-Ziv complexity (LZC), Higuchi's fractal dimension (HFD), and fluctuation-based dispersion entropy (FDispEn). Complexity measures are estimated on real and simulated electroencephalogram (EEG) signals of patients with mild cognitive-impaired Alzheimer's disease (MCI-AD) and controls. Complexity measures are further applied to simulated signals generated from lesion-induced connectivity matrix and studied its impact. It is a novel attempt to study the relation between functional connectivity and complexity using a neurocomputational model. Results Real EEG signals from patients with MCI-AD exhibited reduced functional connectivity and complexity in anterior and central regions. A simulation study has also displayed significantly reduced regional complexity in the patient group with respect to control. A similar reduction in complexity was further evident in simulation studies with lesion-induced control groups compared with non-lesion-induced control groups. Conclusion Taken together, simulation studies demonstrate a positive influence of reduced connectivity in the model imparting a reduced complexity in the EEG signal. The study revealed the presence of a direct relation between functional connectivity and complexity with reduced connectivity, yielding a decreased EEG complexity.