Resting-State Network Alterations Differ between Alzheimer's Disease Atrophy Subtypes

Cereb Cortex. 2021 Oct 1;31(11):4901-4915. doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhab130.

Abstract

Several Alzheimer's disease (AD) atrophy subtypes were identified, but their brain network properties are unclear. We analyzed data from two independent datasets, including 166 participants (103 AD/63 controls) from the DZNE-longitudinal cognitive impairment and dementia study and 151 participants (121 AD/30 controls) from the AD neuroimaging initiative cohorts, aiming to identify differences between AD atrophy subtypes in resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging intra-network connectivity (INC) and global and nodal network properties. Using a data-driven clustering approach, we identified four AD atrophy subtypes with differences in functional connectivity, accompanied by clinical and biomarker alterations, including a medio-temporal-predominant (S-MT), a limbic-predominant (S-L), a diffuse (S-D), and a mild-atrophy (S-MA) subtype. S-MT and S-D showed INC reduction in the default mode, dorsal attention, visual and limbic network, and a pronounced reduction of "global efficiency" and decrease of the "clustering coefficient" in parietal and temporal lobes. Despite severe atrophy in limbic areas, the S-L exhibited only marginal global network but substantial nodal network failure. S-MA, in contrast, showed limited impairment in clinical and cognitive scores but pronounced global network failure. Our results contribute toward a better understanding of heterogeneity in AD with the detection of distinct differences in functional connectivity networks accompanied by CSF biomarker and cognitive differences in AD subtypes.

Keywords: Alzheimer’s disease; brain structure; graph theory; independent component analysis; resting-state connectivity.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Alzheimer Disease* / pathology
  • Atrophy / pathology
  • Brain
  • Cognitive Dysfunction* / pathology
  • Humans
  • Magnetic Resonance Imaging / methods