20. Cortical brain connectivity evaluated by graph theory in dementia: A correlation study between functional and structural data

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• 作者：F. Vecchio ; F. Miraglia ; G. Curcio ; R. Altavilla ; F. Scrascia ; F. Giambattistelli ; C.C. Quattrocchi ; F. Vernieri ; P.M. Rossini
• 刊名：Clinical Neurophysiology
• 出版年：2016
• 出版时间：April 2016
• 年：2016
• 卷：127
• 期：4
• 页码：e137
• 全文大小：32 K

文摘

Functional connectivity, revealed by EEG, evaluates time synchronization in anatomically distinct but functionally collaborating brain regions. Structural connection, revealed by diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), detects fractional anisotropy (FA). FA decreases in pathological aging corpus callosum (CC) and could reflect functional disconnections. We investigated correlations between structural damage of CC (MRI-DTI) and functional abnormalities of brain integration (cortical Characteristic Path Length of EEG). Resting state EEG and MRI were evaluated in 9 healthy controls-Nold, 10 Mild Cognitive Impairment – MCI, 10 mild Alzheimer Disease – AD, 11 moderate AD. Undirected and weighted brain network was built to evaluate graph Path Length weighting network edges by eLORETA lagged connectivity. Callosal FA reduction was associated to a loss of brain interhemispheric functional connectivity characterized by increased delta and decreased alpha Path Length. Global (path length as index of how efficient is the information transfer inside network) functional measure can reflect the reduction of fibers connecting the hemispheres as revealed by DTI. Functional and structural disconnections do not share the same timing (functional coming first) in the prodromal stage of disease, but in disease evolution (from healthy to dementia) it is possible to obtain statistical correlations between connectivity’s indexes.