Disrupted dynamic functional network connectivity among cognitive control networks in the progression of Alzheimer's disease

BackgroundAlzheimers disease (AD) is the most common age-related dementia that promotes a decline in memory, thinking, and social skills. The initial stages of dementia can be associated with mild symptoms, and symptom progression to a more severe state is heterogeneous across patients. Recent work has demonstrated the potential for functional network mapping to assist in the prediction of symptomatic progression. However, this work has primarily used static functional connectivity (sFC) from rs-fMRI. Recently, dynamic functional connectivity (dFC) has been recognized as a powerful advance in functional connectivity methodology to differentiate brain network dynamics between healthy and diseased populations. MethodsGroup independent component analysis was applied to extract 17 components within the cognitive control network (CCN) from 1385 individuals across varying stages of AD symptomology. We estimated dFC among 17 components within the CCN, followed by clustering the dFCs into 3 recurring brain states and then estimated a hidden Markov model and the occupancy rate for each subject. Finally, we investigated the link between CCN dFC connectivity features with AD progression. ResultsProgression of AD symptoms were associated with increases in connectivity within the middle frontal gyrus. Also, the AD with mild and severer symptoms showed less connectivity within the inferior parietal lobule and between this region with the rest of CCN. Finally, comparing with mild dementia, we found that the normal brain spends significantly more time in a state with lower within middle frontal gyrus connectivity and higher connectivity between the hippocampus and the rest of CCN, highlighting the importance of assessing the dynamics of brain connectivity in this disease. ConclusionOur results suggest that AD progress not only alters the CCN connectivity strength but also changes the temporal properties in this brain network. This suggests the temporal and spatial pattern of CCN as a biomarker that differentiates different stages of AD. Impact StatementBy assuming that functional connectivity is static over time, many of previous studies have ignored the brain dynamic in Alzheimers disease progression. Here, a longitudinal resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging data are used to explore the temporal changes of functional connectivity in the cognitive control network in Alzheimers disease progression. The result of this study would increase our understanding about the underlying mechanisms of Alzheimers Disease and help in finding future treatment of this neurological disorder.