Zheng Weimin, Liu Xingyun, Song Haiqing, Li Kuncheng, Wang Zhiqun
Department of Radiology, Dongfang Hospital, Beijing University of Chinese MedicineBeijing, China.
Department of Neurology, Xuanwu Hospital of Capital Medical UniversityBeijing, China.
Front Aging Neurosci. 2017 May 16;9:143. doi: 10.3389/fnagi.2017.00143. eCollection 2017.
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common cause of dementia. Previous studies have found disrupted resting state functional connectivities (rsFCs) in various brain networks in the AD patients. However, few studies have focused on the rsFCs of the cerebellum and its sub-regions in the AD patients. In this study, we collected resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) data including 32 AD patients and 38 healthy controls (HCs). We selected two cognitive-related subregions of the cerebellum as seed region and mapped the whole-brain rsFCs for each subregion. We identified several distinct rsFC patterns of the two cognitive-related cerebellar subregions: default-mode network (DMN), frontoparietal network (FPN), visual network (VN) and sensorimotor network (SMN). Compared with the controls, the AD patients showed disrupted rsFCs in several different networks (DMN, VN and SMN), predicting the impairment of the functional integration in the cerebellum. Notably, these abnormal rsFCs of the two cerebellar subregions were closely associated with cognitive performance. Collectively, we demonstrated the distinct rsFCs patterns of cerebellar sub-regions with various functional networks, which were differentially impaired in the AD patients.
阿尔茨海默病(AD)是痴呆最常见的病因。既往研究发现,AD患者多种脑网络中的静息态功能连接(rsFC)存在破坏。然而,很少有研究关注AD患者小脑及其亚区域的rsFC。在本研究中,我们收集了静息态功能磁共振成像(rs-fMRI)数据,包括32例AD患者和38名健康对照(HC)。我们选择小脑的两个认知相关亚区域作为种子区域,并绘制每个亚区域的全脑rsFC。我们确定了两个认知相关小脑亚区域的几种不同rsFC模式:默认模式网络(DMN)、额顶网络(FPN)、视觉网络(VN)和感觉运动网络(SMN)。与对照组相比,AD患者在几个不同网络(DMN、VN和SMN)中表现出rsFC破坏,提示小脑功能整合受损。值得注意的是,这两个小脑亚区域的这些异常rsFC与认知表现密切相关。总体而言,我们证明了小脑亚区域与各种功能网络不同的rsFC模式,这些模式在AD患者中存在不同程度的损害。