Claudio Babiloni, Italy
Sapienza University of Rome Department of Physiology and Pharmacology “V. Erspamer”Author Of 1 Presentation
HYPERCONNECTIVITY IN FRONTOTEMPORAL VS. ALZHEIMER DEMENTIA: A LONGITUDINAL MULTICENTER EEG STUDY.
Abstract
Aims
Impairment in network connectivity explored by resting state EEG (rsEEG) recordings, was reported in posterior cortical areas of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) patients. In the present longitudinal multicenter study we aimed to: 1. investigate whether disruption of cortical network connectivity is differently expressed in Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD) vs. AD, 2. to longitudinally characterize patterns of connectivity along the course of the disease.
Methods
Network connectivity was detected in rsEEG by Mutual Information (MI) Analysis, a measure of intererelatedness between nodes of a network. MI provided an input for graph theory analysis of the network. rsEEG was recorded in 18 FTD, 18 AD, and 20 healthy controls (HC). FTD and AD patients were recorded at the prodromal stage of dementia, at onset of dementia and three years after dementia onset. HC underwent three EEG recordings at the same interval.
Results
FTD and AD patients showed greater MI than HC at the prodromal stage of dementia (p=4·10-7 for FTD vs. HC; 7·10-3 for AD vs. HC). The main hub of HC (P3) was lost in FTD patients at the onset of dementia and substituted by provincial hubs in frontal leads. FTD network appeared to be rearranged in new small worlds. No changes in global network organization was found in AD.
Conclusions
Cortical neural hyperconnectivity was present only in the prodromal stage of dementia in areas involved in the specific pathological process of FTD (anterior) and AD (posterior regions), thus suggesting that it is an early electrophysiological feature, potentially useful to identify prodromal FTD and AD.