Concurrent Structural and Functional Patterns in Patients With Amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment

• Published in: Frontiers in aging neuroscience Vol. 14; p. 838161
• Main Authors: Liu, Li, Wang, Tenglong, Du, Xiangdong, Zhang, Xiaobin, Xue, Chuang, Ma, Yu, Wang, Dong
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland Frontiers Research Foundation 17.05.2022; Frontiers Media S.A
• Subjects: Alzheimer's disease; amnestic mild cognitive impairment; amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations; Brain; Brain mapping; Cognitive ability; Cortex (cingulate); Data analysis; Dementia; Frontal gyrus; Functional magnetic resonance imaging; Magnetic resonance imaging; Memory; Morphometry; Neural networks; Neurodegenerative diseases; Neuroimaging; Neuroscience; Patients; Precentral gyrus; regional homogeneity; resting-state functional connectivity; Structure-function relationships; Substantia grisea; Superior temporal gyrus; Temporal cortex; Temporal gyrus; Temporal lobe; Time series; voxel-based morphometry; United States > US; resting-state functional connectivity; amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations; voxel-based morphometry; amnestic mild cognitive impairment; regional homogeneity
• ISSN: 1663-4365; 1663-4365
• DOI: 10.3389/fnagi.2022.838161

Amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) is a clinical subtype of MCI, which is known to have a high risk of developing Alzheimer's disease (AD). Although neuroimaging studies have reported brain abnormalities in patients with aMCI, concurrent structural and functional patterns in patients with aMCI were still unclear. In this study, we combined voxel-based morphometry (VBM), amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations (ALFFs), regional homogeneity (Reho), and resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) approaches to explore concurrent structural and functional alterations in patients with aMCI. We found that, compared with healthy controls (HCs), both ALFF and Reho were decreased in the right superior frontal gyrus (SFG_R) and right middle frontal gyrus (MFG_R) of patients with aMCI, and both gray matter volume (GMV) and Reho were decreased in the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG_L) of patients with aMCI. Furthermore, we took these overlapping clusters from VBM, ALFF, and Reho analyses as seed regions to analyze RSFC. We found that, compared with HCs, patients with aMCI had decreased RSFC between SFG_R and the right temporal lobe (subgyral) (TL_R), the MFG_R seed and left superior temporal gyrus (STG_L), left inferior parietal lobule (IPL_L), and right anterior cingulate cortex (ACC_R), the IFG_L seed and left precentral gyrus (PRG_L), left cingulate gyrus (CG_L), and IPL_L. These findings highlighted shared imaging features in structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), suggesting that SFG_R, MFG_R, and IFG_L may play a major role in the pathophysiology of aMCI, which might be useful to better understand the underlying neural mechanisms of aMCI and AD.