Anna Canal Garcia, Sweden
Karolinska Institutet Department of Neurobiology, Care Sciences and SocietyPresenter of 2 Presentations
LIVE DISCUSSION
MULTILAYER BRAIN CONNECTIVITY ANALYSIS IN ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE USING AMYLOID AND CORTICAL THICKNESS DATA
Abstract
Aims
The connectomes obtained from different neuroimaging modalities are often analyzed separately, despite growing evidence showing they are not independent and often interact with each other. The aim of this study is to assess the multilayer connectome across different stages of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) using amyloid and cortical thickness data.
Methods
One-hundred ninety-nine amyloid-negative controls (CN-), 98 amyloid-positive controls (CN+), 234 amyloid-positive patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI+), and 166 amyloid-positive AD patients with T1-weighted MRI and 18F-Florbetapir PET data were included from the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative. We integrated the networks built using amyloid and cortical thickness data into a multiplex network using BRAPH 2.0 (http://braph.org/). This network was binarized with different densities and the multiplex participation, overlapping degree, and degree overlap were compared between groups.
Results
We found significant multiplex participation decreases in the right entorhinal cortex and increases in the left entorhinal cortex in MCI+ compared to CN-. In AD+, in addition to the entorhinal changes, significant decreases in the temporal pole and caudal anterior cingulate were also found compared to CN-. There were significant overlapping degree decreases in the parahippocampal, precentral, and entorhinal cortices in addition to increases in the caudal anterior cingulate in CN+ compared to CN-. Finally, the degree overlap was lower in widespread areas in AD+ and in temporal areas in MCI+ and CN+ compared to CN-.
Conclusions
These findings suggest that the multilayer brain connectome can detect widespread changes in the interaction between amyloid pathology and gray matter atrophy across different stages of AD.