Niu Jianhua, Zhang Jingchen, Yan Jueyue, Xu Zhipeng, Fang Xing, You Jingyu, Liu Zhihai, Wu Weifang, Li Tong
Department of Critical Care Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, China.
Front Aging Neurosci. 2022 Jun 27;14:786253. doi: 10.3389/fnagi.2022.786253. eCollection 2022.
Recent neuroimaging reports have shown the microstructural changes in coronary artery disease (CAD) and its correlation with cognitive dysfunction while little is known about the functional characteristics of CAD. We hypothesize that functional characteristics may give clues to underlying pathology in CAD and its link with cognitive dysfunction. Degree centrality (DC), a graph-based assessment of network organization was performed to explore the neural connectivity changes in CAD patients compared with healthy controls and their correlation with cognitive measures.
Thirty CAD patients and 36 healthy controls were included in our study. All participants underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) of the brain. We performed DC analysis to identify voxels that showed changes in whole-brain functional connectivity with other voxels. DC was measured by the fMRI graph method and comparisons between the two groups were done. All participants underwent neuropsychological assessment (Montreal Cognitive Assessment, MoCA and Mini-Mental State Examination, MMSE).
Our data analysis included 30 CAD patients (59.90 ± 7.53 years) and 36 HCs (61.61 ± 6.19 years). CAD patients showed a greater prevalence of white matter lesions using the Fazekas score than healthy controls ( < 0.001). Importantly, CAD patients showed significantly lower ( < 0.001) MoCA and MMSE scores compared with healthy controls. CAD patients showed significantly decreased DC value ( < 0.001) in the right hippocampus (hippocampus_R), right lingual gyrus (lingual_R), and significantly increased DC value ( < 0.001) in the left middle frontal gyrus (Frontal_Mid_L) when compared with healthy controls respectively. DC value in the hippocampus_R significantly correlated ( < 0.00) with MMSE and MoCA scores in CAD patients. Fazekas scores in CAD patients showed a significant correlation ( < 0.001) with the DC value in the hippocampus_R.
These findings suggest that reduced cerebral neural connectivity in CAD may contribute to their cognitive impairment and white matter microstructural damage.
近期的神经影像学报告显示了冠状动脉疾病（CAD）中的微观结构变化及其与认知功能障碍的相关性，而关于CAD的功能特征却知之甚少。我们假设功能特征可能为CAD的潜在病理及其与认知功能障碍的联系提供线索。进行基于图的网络组织评估——度中心性（DC）分析，以探究CAD患者与健康对照相比的神经连接变化及其与认知指标的相关性。
本研究纳入了30例CAD患者和36例健康对照。所有参与者均接受了脑部功能磁共振成像（fMRI）检查。我们进行DC分析以识别与其他体素的全脑功能连接显示出变化的体素。通过fMRI图方法测量DC，并对两组进行比较。所有参与者均接受了神经心理学评估（蒙特利尔认知评估，MoCA和简易精神状态检查，MMSE）。
我们的数据分析纳入了30例CAD患者（59.90±7.53岁）和36例健康对照（61.61±6.19岁）。使用 Fazekas评分，CAD患者白质病变的患病率高于健康对照（<0.001）。重要的是，与健康对照相比，CAD患者的MoCA和MMSE评分显著更低（<0.001）。与健康对照相比，CAD患者右侧海马（海马_R）、右侧舌回（舌_R）的DC值显著降低（<0.001），而左侧额中回（额中_L）的DC值显著升高（<0.001）。CAD患者海马_R中的DC值与MMSE和MoCA评分显著相关（<0.00）。CAD患者的Fazekas评分与海马_R中的DC值显著相关（<0.001）。
这些发现表明，CAD中脑神经网络连接性降低可能导致其认知障碍和白质微观结构损伤。
