Regional homogeneity and whole brain functional connectivity in subjects with mild cognitive impairment / 中华老年医学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To investigate regional homogeneity(ReHo)and whole brain functional connectivity(FC)in patients with mild cognitive impairment(MCI), and to explore the mechanisms of MCI in the resting state.Methods:Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging(RS-fMRI)was performed on 24 patients with MCI and 30 age, gender and nationality-matched normal controls.Abnormal brain areas in the MCI group were screened and analyzed by using the DPARSFA2.3 and SPM8 software programs.Whole brain FC analysis was performed with the posterior cingulate cortex(PCC)/precuneus as the seed points.Results:Compared with the control group, MCI subjects displayed higher ReHo values in the frontal-middle-Left, precentral-Left, postcentral-Left, rolandic-opercular-Left, and frontal-inferior-opercular-Left and lower ReHo values in the temporal-superior-right, temporal-middle-right, postcentral-right, and temporal -pole -superior -right(Voxel level, Alphasim correction, P<0.05). Whole brain FC analysis showed greater functional connectivity of PCC/precuneus with fusiform-right, thalamus-right, lingual-right and parahippocampal-right in subjects with MCI, and less functional connectivity of the PCC/precuneus with temporal-middle-Left, angular-Left, temporal-superior-Left and occipital-middle-Left in subjects with MCI(Voxel level, Alphasim correction, P<0.05). Conclusions:Abnormalities of the default mode network may be associated with the onset of MCI, and abnormalities in posterior cingulate/precuneus connectivity may be helpful in finding imaging evidence with high sensitivity to MCI.