Regional networks underlying interhemispheric connectivity: An EEG and DTI study in healthy ageing and amnestic mild cognitive impairment

• Published in: Human brain mapping Vol. 30; no. 7; pp. 2098 - 2119
• Main Authors: Teipel, Stefan J., Pogarell, Oliver, Meindl, Thomas, Dietrich, Olaf, Sydykova, Djyldyz, Hunklinger, Ulrike, Georgii, Bea, Mulert, Christoph, Reiser, Maximilian F., Möller, Hans-Jürgen, Hampel, Harald
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Hoboken Wiley Subscription Services, Inc., A Wiley Company 01.07.2009; Wiley-Liss
• Subjects: Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Aging; Alzheimer's disease; Amnesia - complications; Amnesia - pathology; Amnesia - physiopathology; Biological and medical sciences; Brain - pathology; Brain - physiopathology; Brain Mapping; Cognition Disorders - complications; Cognition Disorders - pathology; Cognition Disorders - physiopathology; cortical connectivity; Diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging; diffusion tensor imaging; Electrodiagnosis. Electric activity recording; Electroencephalography; Female; Humans; Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; interhemispheric coherence; Investigative techniques, diagnostic techniques (general aspects); Male; Medical sciences; Middle Aged; Multivariate Analysis; Nervous system; Neural Pathways - pathology; Neural Pathways - physiopathology; neuronal networks; Radiodiagnosis. Nmr imagery. Nmr spectrometry; Nervous system diseases; Radiodiagnosis; Alzheimer disease; Ageing; Electrophysiology; Diffusion imaging; Electroencephalography; Neural network; interhemispheric coherence; Cerebral disorder; Diffusion tensor; neuronal networks; Central nervous system disease; Coherence; diffusion tensor imaging; Degenerative disease; Alzheimer's disease; cortical connectivity
• ISSN: 1065-9471; 1097-0193; 1097-0193
• DOI: 10.1002/hbm.20652

Interhemispheric coherence derived from electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings is a measure of functional interhemispheric connectivity. Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) determines the integrity of subcortical fiber tracts. We studied the pattern of subcortical fiber tracts underlying interhemispheric coherence and its alteration in 16 subjects with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (MCI), an at risk syndrome for Alzheimer's disease, and 20 cognitively healthy elderly control subjects using resting state EEG and high resolution DTI at 3 T. We used a multivariate network approach based on principal component analysis to determine effects of coherence on the regional pattern of diffusivity. Temporo‐parietal coherence in the α band was significantly correlated with diffusivity in predominantly posterior white matter tracts including posterior corpus callosum, parietal, temporal and occipital lobe white matter, thalamus, midbrain, pons, and cerebellum, both in MCI subjects and controls (P < 0.05). In MCI subjects, frontal coherence in the α band was significantly correlated with a predominately frontal pattern of diffusivity including fiber tracts of the anterior corpus callosum, frontal lobe white matter, thalamus, pons, and cerebellum (P < 0.05). The study provides a methodology to access specific networks of subcortical fiber tracts subserving the maintenance of interhemispheric resting state coherence in the human brain. Hum Brain Mapp, 2009. © 2008 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.