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. 2020 Mar 17:12:64.
doi: 10.3389/fnagi.2020.00064. eCollection 2020.

Structural and Functional Hippocampal Changes in Subjective Cognitive Decline From the Community

Lingyan Liang  1 , Lihua Zhao  2 , Yichen Wei  1 , Wei Mai  2 , Gaoxiong Duan  1 , Jiahui Su  2 , Xiucheng Nong  2 , Bihan Yu  2 , Chong Li  2 , Xiaping Mo  1 , Georgia Wilson  3 , Demao Deng  1 , Jian Kong  3
Affiliations

Structural and Functional Hippocampal Changes in Subjective Cognitive Decline From the Community

Lingyan Liang et al. Front Aging Neurosci. .

Abstract

Background: Recently, subjective cognitive decline (SCD) has been described as the earliest at-risk state of Alzheimer's disease (AD), and drawn attention of investigators. Studies suggested that SCD-community individuals may constitute a more vulnerable population than SCD-clinic patients, therefore, to investigate the early changes of the brain may provide guidance for treatment of the disease. We sought to investigate the changes of structure and functional connectivity alternation of the hippocampus in individuals with SCD recruited from the community using structural and resting-state functional MRI (fMRI).

Methods: Thirty-five SCD patients and 32 healthy controls were recruited. Resting-state fMRI data and high-resolution T1-weighted images were collected. Whole-brain voxel-based morphometry was used to examine the brain structural changes. We also used the hippocampal tail and the whole hippocampus as seeds to investigate functional connectivity alternation in SCD.

Results: Individuals with SCD showed significant gray matter volume decreases in the bilateral hippocampal tails and enlargement of the bilateral paracentral lobules. We also found that individuals with SCD showed decreased hippocampal tail resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) with the right medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and the left temporoparietal junction (TPJ), and decreased whole hippocampus rsFC with the bilateral mPFC and TPJ. These brain region and FC showing significant differences also showed significantly correlation with Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) scores.

Conclusion: Individuals with SCD recruited from the community is associated with structural and functional changes of the hippocampus, and these changes may serve as potential biomarkers of SCD.

Clinical trial registration: The Declaration of Helsinki, and the study was registered in http://www.chictr.org.cn. The Clinical Trial Registration Number was ChiCTR-IPR-16009144.

Keywords: functional connectivity; hippocampus; resting-state functional MR imaging; subjective cognitive decline; voxel-based morphometry.

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Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Flowchart shows details of data collection process. MMSE, Mini-Mental State Examination; CDR, Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR) Scale; GDS, Geriatric Depression Scale; AVLT, Auditory-Verbal Learning Test; STT, Shape Trails Test; AFT, Animal Fluency Test, BNT, Boston Naming Test; SCD, subjective cognitive decline; HC, healthy control; SD, standard deviation.
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Voxel-based morphometry (VBM) analysis revealed altered gray matter volume in the SCD group compared to the HC group. Scatter plots illustrate MoCA scores and VBM correlation analysis.
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
Correlation analysis between AVLT-Delayed recall scores and altered gray matter volume of the left hippocampus tail in the SCD group.
FIGURE 4
FIGURE 4
Functional connectivity analysis results using the hippocampal tail and whole hippocampus as seed. Scatter plots indicate the association between the MoCA scores and connectivity correlation analysis.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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