Patients with dementia with Lewy bodies display a signature alteration of their cognitive connectome

Cognition plays a central role in the diagnosis and characterization of dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB). However, the complex associations among cognitive deficits in different domains in DLB are largely unknown. To characterize these associations, we investigated and compared the cognitive connectome of DLB patients, healthy controls (HC), and Alzheimer's disease patients (AD). We obtained data from the National Alzheimer's Coordinating Center. We built cognitive connectomes for DLB (n = 104), HC (n = 3703), and AD (n = 1985) using correlations among 24 cognitive measures mapping multiple cognitive domains. Connectomes were compared using global and nodal graph measures of centrality, integration, and segregation. For global measures, DLB showed a higher global efficiency (integration) and lower transitivity (segregation) than HC and AD. For nodal measures, DLB showed higher global efficiency in most measures, higher participation (centrality) in free-recall memory, processing speed/attention, and executive measures, and lower local efficiency (segregation) than HC. Compared with AD, DLB showed lower nodal strength and local efficiency, especially in memory consolidation. The cognitive connectome of DLB shows a loss of segregation, leading to a loss of cognitive specialization. This study provides the data to advance the understanding of cognitive impairment and clinical phenotype in DLB, with implications for differential diagnosis.