Functional connectivity alterations in women with subjective cognitive decline

Background: Alzheimer's disease (AD) is an incurable neurodegenerative disorder, which disproportionately affects women. Along the continuum of dementia, those who experience subjective cognitive decline (SCD) are thought to be the earliest group at risk for development of AD. Objective: The current study investigated differences in functional connectivity between healthy older women and older women with SCD in multiple resting-state functional connectivity networks. This study also examined whether additional differences existed between women with and without SCD, in various demographic variables, lifestyle factors, and medical comorbidities. Methods: 3T high-resolution resting-state functional MRI (fMRI) scans were retrieved for 25 healthy older women and 25 older women who self-report SCD from the Women's Healthy Ageing Program (WHAP). A seed-based approach was executed in FMRIB's Software Library (FSL) to examine significant differences in functional connectivity within the default mode network (DMN), frontoparietal network (FPN), and salience network (SN) between groups. Group comparisons were conducted between women with SCD and healthy women on various demographic variables, lifestyle factors, and medical comorbidities. Results: Findings revealed significant increases in functional connectivity in the DMN and FPN in older women with SCD compared to healthy older women. Conclusions: Women with self-reported SCD had increased functional connectivity, with no significant differences were detected between groups on comparisons of various demographic variables, lifestyle factors, and medical comorbidities.