Division of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
Brain. 2013 Jul;136(Pt 7):2239-52. doi: 10.1093/brain/awt146.
Alzheimer's disease is a neurodegenerative disease that is associated with the abnormal accumulation of amyloid-β. Much is known about regional brain atrophy in Alzheimer's disease, yet our knowledge about the network nature of Alzheimer's disease-associated amyloid-β accumulation is limited. We use stepwise connectivity analysis of Pittsburgh Compound B positron emission tomography images to reveal the network properties of amyloid-β deposits in normal elderly subjects and clinical patients with Alzheimer's disease. We found that amyloid-β accumulation in the medial temporal lobe is associated with accumulation in cortical regions such as orbitofrontal, lateral temporal and precuneus/posterior cingulate cortices in Alzheimer's disease. In normal subjects, there was a predominant association between amyloid-β deposits in the hippocampus and the midline prefrontal/orbitofrontal regions, even in those with very low amyloid-β burden. Moreover, the orbitofrontal cortex, amygdala nucleus and hippocampus exhibit hub properties in the amyloid-β network that may be critical to understanding the putative spreading mechanisms of Alzheimer's disease pathology in early stages.
阿尔茨海默病是一种神经退行性疾病，与淀粉样蛋白-β的异常积累有关。我们对阿尔茨海默病患者大脑区域性萎缩已有较多了解，但对与阿尔茨海默病相关的淀粉样蛋白-β积累的网络性质的认识仍有限。我们使用匹兹堡化合物 B 正电子发射断层扫描图像的逐步连通性分析，揭示了正常老年个体和阿尔茨海默病临床患者中淀粉样蛋白-β沉积的网络性质。我们发现，在阿尔茨海默病患者中，内侧颞叶的淀粉样蛋白-β积累与额下回、外侧颞叶和楔前叶/后扣带回皮质等皮质区域的积累有关。在正常个体中，即使在淀粉样蛋白-β负担非常低的个体中，海马体的淀粉样蛋白-β沉积与中线前额叶/额下回区域之间也存在明显的相关性。此外，眶额皮质、杏仁核和海马体在淀粉样蛋白-β网络中具有枢纽特性，这可能对理解阿尔茨海默病病理学在早期阶段的潜在传播机制至关重要。
