Regional-based static and dynamic alterations in Alzheimer disease: a longitudinal study

Alzheimer disease (AD) leads to cognitive decline and alters functional connectivity (FC) in key brain regions. Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) assesses these changes using static-FC for overall correlation and dynamic-FC for temporal variability.

In AD, there is altered FC compared to normal conditions. The present study investigates possible region-specific functional abnormalities occurring longitudinally over 1 year. Our aim is to evaluate the potential usefulness of the static and dynamic approaches in identifying biomarkers of AD progression.

The study involved 15 AD and 20 healthy participants from the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative 2 (ADNI2) database, tracked over 2 visits within 1 year. Using constrained-independent component analysis, we assessed FC changes across 80-regions of interest in AD over the year, examining both static and dynamic conditions.

The average regional FC decreased in AD compared to healthy subjects at baseline and after 1 year. The dynamic condition identifies similarities with a few additional changes in the FC compared to the static condition. In both analyses, the baseline assessment revealed reduced connectivity between the following regions: right-middle-occipital and left-superior-occipital, left-hippocampus and right-postcentral, left-lingual and left-fusiform, and precuneus and left-thalamus. Additionally, increased connectivity was found between the left-superior-occipital and precuneus regions. In the 1-year AD assessment, increased connectivity was noted between the right-superior-temporal-pole and right-insular, right-hippocampus and left-caudate, right-middle-occipital and right-superior-temporal-pole, and posterior-cingulate-cortex and middle-temporal-pole regions.

Significant changes were observed at baseline in the frontal, occipital, and core basal-ganglia regions, progressing towards the temporal lobe and subcortical regions in the following year. After 1 year, we observed the aforementioned region-specific neurological differences in AD, significantly aiding diagnosis and disease tracking.