Altered Topological Properties of Functional Brain Network Associated with Alzheimer's Disease
This research addresses the problem of understanding AD pathophysiology for medical researchers and clinicians, but it is incremental as it applies existing graph-theory methods to new data.
The study investigated differences in functional brain network topology between Alzheimer's Disease (AD) patients and normal controls using fMRI data from 590 subjects, finding abnormal network integration and segregation in the AD group.
Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) is commonly utilized to study human brain activity, including abnormal functional properties related to neurodegenerative diseases. This study aims to investigate the differences in the topological properties of functional brain networks between individuals with Alzheimer's Disease (AD) and normal controls. A total of 590 subjects, consisting of 175 with AD dementia and 415 age-, gender-, and handedness-matched controls, were included. The topological properties of the brain network were quantified using graph-theory-based analyses. The results indicate abnormal network integration and segregation in the AD group. These findings enhance our understanding of AD pathophysiology from a functional brain network structure perspective and may aid in identifying AD biomarkers. Supplementary data to aid in the validation of this research are available at https://github.com/YongchengYAO/AD-FunctionalBrainNetwork.