Dynamic functional connectivity is related to cognitive performance of prodromal Lewy body dementia

Brain connectivity dynamics in mild cognitive impairment with Lewy bodies (MCI-LB) is largely unknown. We aimed to identify brain connectivity dynamics related to cognitive performance in drug naïve MCI-LB. Healthy (55 participants, age 67.7 ± 6.4, 33 females) and MCI-LB subjects (30 participants, age 68.5 ± 6.0, 16 females) underwent cognitive testing and fMRI. The fast eigenvector centrality dynamic functional connectivity was employed to detect connectivity states. Mean state duration and occurrence were correlated to cognitive measures. In the MCI-LB group only, the occurrence and mean duration of the state characterized by between-network connectivity of the dorsal attention, sensorimotor, and visual networks correlated with visuospatial function (VSF) domain z-scores (r = 0.68, p = 0.003, and r = -0.68, p = 0.003, respectively). The VSF also correlated with the occurrence of the state characterized by intra-network connectivity of the frontoparietal control network (r = -0.55, p = 0.041). We identified specific mechanisms that seem to facilitate visuospatial performance in MCI-LB.