The Cognitive Neuroscience Research Group, Brain Sciences Center, Minneapolis Veterans Affairs Health Care System, Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States.
Department of Neuroscience, University of Minnesota Medical School, Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States.
J Neurophysiol. 2023 Apr 1;129(4):963-967. doi: 10.1152/jn.00077.2023. Epub 2023 Mar 29.
Previous studies have shown that synchronous neural interactions (SNIs) underlying healthy brain function can be readily distinguished from neural anomalies associated with diseases including dementia; however, it is imperative to identify biomarkers that facilitate early identification of individuals at risk for cognitive decline before the onset of clinical symptoms. Here, we evaluated whether variation in brain function, controlling for age, corresponds with subtle decrements in cognitive performance in cognitively healthy women. A total of 251 women (age range 24-102 yr) who performed above established cutoffs on the Montreal cognitive assessment (MoCA) also underwent a task-free magnetoencephalography scan from which SNIs were computed. The results demonstrated that increased SNI was significantly associated with decreased cognitive performance ( = 0.923, = 0.009), controlling for age. Compared with the lowest performers with normal cognition (MoCA = 26), SNI of the highest performers (MoCA = 30) was associated with decorrelation primarily in the right anterior temporal cortex region, with additional (weaker) foci in left anterior temporal cortex, right posterior temporal cortex, and cerebellum. The findings highlight the relevance of neural network decorrelation on cognitive functioning and suggest that subtle increases in SNI may presage future cognitive impairment. This study in cognitively healthy women showed that decreased cognitive performance is associated with increased neural network correlations, particularly involving the temporal cortices. As healthy brain function relies on dynamic neural network communication, these findings suggest that subtle increases in correlated neural network activity may be a useful early indicator of decrements in cognitive function.
先前的研究表明，健康大脑功能的同步神经相互作用（SNIs）可以很容易地与包括痴呆症在内的疾病相关的神经异常区分开来；然而，确定有助于在出现临床症状之前识别认知能力下降风险个体的生物标志物至关重要。在这里，我们评估了大脑功能的变化是否与认知健康女性认知表现的细微下降相对应，同时控制了年龄因素。共有 251 名女性（年龄范围为 24-102 岁），她们在蒙特利尔认知评估（MoCA）中的得分超过了既定的截止值，还进行了一项无需任务的脑磁图扫描，从中计算出了 SNIs。结果表明，SNI 的增加与认知表现的下降显著相关（ = 0.923， = 0.009），同时控制了年龄因素。与认知正常（MoCA = 26）的最低表现者相比，最高表现者（MoCA = 30）的 SNI 与右前颞叶皮层区域的去相关主要相关，左前颞叶皮层、右后颞叶皮层和小脑也存在额外的（较弱的）焦点。这些发现强调了神经网络去相关对认知功能的相关性，表明 SNI 的轻微增加可能预示着未来的认知障碍。这项针对认知健康女性的研究表明，认知表现下降与神经网络相关性增加有关，特别是涉及颞叶。由于健康大脑功能依赖于动态神经网络通信，这些发现表明，相关神经网络活动的轻微增加可能是认知功能下降的有用早期指标。
