Shatalina Ekaterina, Onwordi Ellis Chika, Whitehurst Thomas, Whittington Alexander, Mansur Ayla, Arumuham Atheeshaan, Statton Ben, Berry Alaine, Marques Tiago Reis, Gunn Roger N, Natesan Sridhar, Nour Matthew M, Rabiner Eugenii A, Wall Matthew B, Howes Oliver D
Department of Psychosis Studies, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London, London, United Kingdom.
MRC Laboratory of Medical Science, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.
Imaging Neurosci (Camb). 2024 Jun 10;2:1-16. doi: 10.1162/imag_a_00190. eCollection 2024 Jun 1.
Synaptic terminal density is thought to influence cognitive function and neural activity, yet its role in cognition has not been explored in healthy humans. We examined these relationships using [11C]UCB-J positron emission tomography (PET) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in 25 healthy adults performing cognitive function tasks in the scanner. We found a significant positive association between synaptic terminal density, indicated by [11C]UCB-J PET distribution volume ratio (DVRcs), and neural activity during task switching (PLS-CA, second canonical component, = 0.63, = 0.043) with the thalamus-putamen data positively contributing to this relationship (PLS-CA loading 0.679, exploratory Pearson's correlation = 0.42, = 0.044, uncorrected). Furthermore, synaptic terminal density predicted switch cost (PLS-R, R = 0.45, RMSE = 0.06, = 0.022), with DVRcs negatively correlating with switch cost in key brain regions including the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and posterior frontal cortex. Conversely, no significant relationships were observed between [11C]UCB-J DVRcs and neural activity or performance measures in the N-back working memory task, suggesting interindividual differences in synaptic terminal density may be more closely related to some cognitive functions and not others.
突触终末密度被认为会影响认知功能和神经活动,但其在健康人类认知中的作用尚未得到探索。我们使用[11C]UCB-J正电子发射断层扫描(PET)和功能磁共振成像(fMRI)对25名在扫描仪中执行认知功能任务的健康成年人进行了这些关系的研究。我们发现,由[11C]UCB-J PET分布体积比(DVRcs)表示的突触终末密度与任务切换期间的神经活动之间存在显著正相关(PLS-CA,第二个典型成分,= 0.63,= 0.043),丘脑-壳核数据对这种关系有正向贡献(PLS-CA负荷0.679,探索性Pearson相关性 = 0.42,= 0.044,未校正)。此外,突触终末密度可预测切换成本(PLS-R,R = 0.45,RMSE = 0.06,= 0.022),DVRcs与包括背外侧前额叶皮层和额叶后部皮层在内的关键脑区的切换成本呈负相关。相反,在N-back工作记忆任务中,未观察到[11C]UCB-J DVRcs与神经活动或表现指标之间存在显著关系,这表明突触终末密度的个体差异可能与某些认知功能的关系更为密切,而与其他认知功能的关系并非如此。