Ruan Nairong, Li Xingxing, Xu Ting, Zhao Zheng, Mei Xi, Zheng Chengying
Department of Psychiatry, Affiliated Kangning Hospital of Ningbo University, Ningbo, China.
Department of Psychiatry, Ningbo Kangning Hospital, Ningbo, China.
Front Aging Neurosci. 2024 Sep 25;16:1433551. doi: 10.3389/fnagi.2024.1433551. eCollection 2024.
This study aimed to investigate cortical activation and functional connectivity in the cortex during working memory (WM) tasks in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS).
A total of 17 older adults with AD and 17 cognitively normal (CN) participants were recruited. fNIRS was utilized to monitor oxygenated hemoglobin (HbO) concentrations in the frontotemporal lobe, while participants performed WM tasks to examine WM impairments in subjects with AD. Student's t-test for continuous variables and the chi-square test for categorical variables were used to compare the clinical and HbO variables between the AD and CN groups. Functional connectivity was analyzed using Pearson's correlation coefficient between the time series of each channel-to-channel pair.
The changes in HbO concentrations and cortical activations during the WM task showed that the HbO concentration curve of the CN group was higher than that of the AD group during the encoding and maintenance phases of the WM task. Although in the brain region scale, there were no significant differences in average HbO concentrations between the two groups, many channels located in the frontal and temporal lobes showed significant differences ( < 0.05) in the average HbO (channels 7 and 32) and slope HbO values (channels 7, 8, 9, 23, 30, 34, and 38) during the WM task. The average functional connectivity of the AD group was significantly lower than that of the CN group ( < 0.05). The functional connectivity was stronger in the frontopolar (FP) region than in other areas in both groups.
This study revealed there were significant differences in HbO concentration in older adult patients with AD compared to CN during the WM task. The characteristics of HbO measured by the fNIRS technique can be valuable for distinguishing between AD and CN in older adults.
本研究旨在利用功能近红外光谱技术（fNIRS），调查阿尔茨海默病（AD）患者在执行工作记忆（WM）任务期间大脑皮层的激活情况及皮层功能连接性。
共招募了17名患有AD的老年人和17名认知正常（CN）的参与者。在参与者执行WM任务以检查AD患者的WM损伤时，使用fNIRS监测额颞叶的氧合血红蛋白（HbO）浓度。采用连续变量的学生t检验和分类变量的卡方检验，比较AD组和CN组之间的临床和HbO变量。使用每对通道间时间序列的皮尔逊相关系数分析功能连接性。
WM任务期间HbO浓度和皮层激活的变化表明，在WM任务的编码和维持阶段，CN组的HbO浓度曲线高于AD组。尽管在脑区尺度上，两组之间的平均HbO浓度没有显著差异，但位于额叶和颞叶的许多通道在WM任务期间的平均HbO（通道7和32）和HbO斜率值（通道7、8、9、23、30、34和38）显示出显著差异（<0.05）。AD组的平均功能连接性显著低于CN组（<0.05）。两组中，额极（FP）区域的功能连接性均强于其他区域。
本研究表明，在执行WM任务时，与认知正常者相比，患有AD的老年患者的HbO浓度存在显著差异。fNIRS技术测量的HbO特征对于区分老年人中的AD和认知正常者可能具有重要价值。
