Alpha rhythm and Alzheimer's disease: Has Hans Berger's dream come true?

Claudio Babiloni¹, Xianghong Arakaki², Sandra Baez³, Robert J Barry⁴, Alberto Benussi⁵, Katarzyna Blinowska⁶, Laura Bonanni⁷, Barbara Borroni⁸, Jorge Bosch Bayard⁹, Giuseppe Bruno¹⁰, Alessia Cacciotti¹¹, Filippo Carducci¹², John Carino¹³, Matteo Carpi¹², Antonella Conte¹⁴, Josephine Cruzat¹⁵, Fabrizia D'Antonio¹⁰, Stefania Della Penna¹⁶, Claudio Del Percio¹², Pierfilippo De Sanctis¹⁷, Javier Escudero¹⁸, Giovanni Fabbrini¹⁴, Francesca R Farina¹⁹, Francisco J Fraga²⁰, Peter Fuhr²¹, Ute Gschwandtner²¹, Bahar Güntekin²², Yi Guo²³, Mihaly Hajos²⁴, Mark Hallett²⁵, Harald Hampel²⁶, Lutfu Hanoğlu²⁷, Ira Haraldsen²⁸, Mahmoud Hassan²⁹, Christoffer Hatlestad-Hall²⁸, András Attila Horváth³⁰, Agustin Ibanez³¹, Francesco Infarinato³², Alberto Jaramillo-Jimenez³³, Jaeseung Jeong³⁴, Yang Jiang³⁵, Maciej Kamiński³⁶, Giacomo Koch³⁷, Sanjeev Kumar³⁸, Giorgio Leodori¹⁴, Gang Li³⁹, Roberta Lizio⁴⁰, Susanna Lopez¹², Raffaele Ferri⁴¹, Fernando Maestú⁴², Camillo Marra⁴³, Laura Marzetti⁴⁴, William McGeown⁴⁵, Francesca Miraglia¹¹, Sebastian Moguilner⁴⁶, Davide V Moretti⁴⁷, Faisal Mushtaq⁴⁸, Giuseppe Noce⁴⁹, Lorenzo Nucci⁵⁰, John Ochoa⁵¹, Paolo Onorati¹², Alessandro Padovani⁵², Chiara Pappalettera¹¹, Mario Alfredo Parra⁴⁵, Matteo Pardini⁵³, Roberto Pascual-Marqui⁵⁴, Walter Paulus⁵⁵, Vittorio Pizzella¹⁶, Pavel Prado⁵⁶, Géraldine Rauchs⁵⁷, Petra Ritter⁵⁸, Marco Salvatore⁴⁹, Hernando Santamaria-García⁵⁹, Michael Schirner⁵⁸, Andrea Soricelli⁶⁰, John-Paul Taylor⁶¹, Hatice Tankisi⁶², Franca Tecchio⁶³, Stefan Teipel⁶⁴, Alpha Tom Kodamullil⁶⁵, Antonio Ivano Triggiani⁶⁶, Mitchell Valdes-Sosa⁶⁷, Pedro Valdes-Sosa⁶⁸, Fabrizio Vecchio⁶⁹, Keith Vossel⁷⁰, Dezhong Yao⁷¹, Görsev Yener⁷², Ulf Ziemann⁷³, Anita Kamondi⁷⁴

Affiliations

¹ Department of Physiology and Pharmacology "Vittorio Erspamer," Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy; San Raffaele of Cassino, Cassino, (FR), Italy. Electronic address: claudio.babiloni@uniroma1.it.
² Cognition and Brain Integration Laboratory, Neurosciences, Huntington Medical Research Institutes, Pasadena, CA, USA.
³ Universidad de los Andes, Bogota, Colombia; Global Brain Health Institute (GBHI), University of California, San Francisco, USA; Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.
⁴ Brain & Behaviour Research Institute and School of Psychology, University of Wollongong, Wollongong 2522, Australia.
⁵ Neurology Unit, Department of Medical, Surgical and Health Sciences, University of Trieste, Trieste, Italy.
⁶ Department of Biomedical Physics, Faculty of Physics, University of Warsaw, Poland; Nalecz Institute of Biocybernetics and Biomedical Engineering, Warsaw, Poland.
⁷ Department of Medicine, Aging Sciences University G. d'Annunzio of Chieti-Pescara Chieti 66100 Chieti, Italy.
⁸ Neurology Unit, Department of Clinical and Experimental Sciences, University of Brescia, Brescia, Italy; Molecular Markers Laboratory, IRCCS Istituto Centro San Giovanni di Dio Fatebenefratelli, Brescia 25125, Italy.
⁹ Facultad de Psicología, Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain.
¹⁰ Department of Human Neuroscience, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy.
¹¹ Brain Connectivity Laboratory, Department of Neuroscience and Neurorehabilitation, IRCCS San Raffaele Roma, Rome, Italy; Department of Theoretical and Applied Sciences, eCampus University, Novedrate, Como, Italy.
¹² Department of Physiology and Pharmacology "Vittorio Erspamer," Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy.
¹³ Clinical Neurophysiology, Royal Melbourne Hospital, Parkville, Melbourne, Australia.
¹⁴ Department of Human Neuroscience, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy; IRCCS Neuromed, Pozzilli, Italy.
¹⁵ Latin American Brain Health Institute (BrainLat), Universidad Adolfo Ibañez, Santiago, Chile.
¹⁶ Department of Neuroscience, Imaging and Clinical Sciences, "G. d'Annunzio" University of Chieti and Pescara, Chieti, Italy; Institute for Advanced Biomedical Technologies (ITAB), "G. d'Annunzio" University of Chieti and Pescara, Chieti, Italy.
¹⁷ Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Department of Neurology, Bronx, NY 10461, USA.
¹⁸ Institute for Imaging, Data and Communications, School of Engineering, University of Edinburgh, UK.
¹⁹ The University of Chicago Division of the Biological Sciences 5841 S Maryland Avenue Chicago, IL 60637, USA; Global Brain Health Institute (GBHI), Trinity College Dublin, Ireland.
²⁰ Engineering, Modeling and Applied Social Sciences Center, Federal University of ABC, Santo André, Brazil.
²¹ Department of Neurology, Hospitals of the University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland.
²² Department of Biophysics, School of Medicine, Istanbul Medipol University, Istanbul, Turkey; Research Institute for Health Sciences and Technologies (SABITA), Istanbul Medipol University, Istanbul, Turkey.
²³ Department of Neurology, Shenzhen People's Hospital and The First Affiliated Hospital, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China; Shenzhen Bay Laboratory, Shenzhen, China; Tianjin Huanhu Hospital, Tianjin, China.
²⁴ Cognito Therapeutics, Cambridge, MA, USA; Department of Comparative Medicine, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA.
²⁵ Human Motor Control Section, Medical Neurology Branch, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, National Institutes of Health, Building 10, Room 7D37, 10 Center Drive, Bethesda, MD 20892-1428, USA.
²⁶ Sorbonne University, Alzheimer Precision Medicine, AP-HP, Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, Boulevard de l'hôpital, F-75013 Paris, France.
²⁷ Research Institute for Health Sciences and Technologies (SABITA), Istanbul Medipol University, Istanbul, Turkey; Department of Neurology, School of Medicine, Istanbul Medipol University, Istanbul, Turkey.
²⁸ Department of Neurology, Oslo University Hospital, Oslo, Norway.
²⁹ MINDIG, F-35000 Rennes, France; School of Science and Engineering, Reykjavik University, Reykjavik, Iceland.
³⁰ Neurocognitive Research Centre, Nyírő Gyula National Institute of Psychiatry and Addictology, Budapest, Hungary; Department of Anatomy, Histology and Embryology, Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary; Research Centre for Natural Sciences, HUN-REN, Budapest, Hungary.
³¹ Latin American Brain Health Institute (BrainLat), Universidad Adolfo Ibañez, Santiago, Chile; Global Brain Health Institute (GBHI), Trinity College Dublin, Ireland; Cognitive Neuroscience Center, Universidad de San Andrés, Victoria, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
³² Rehabilitation Bioengineering Laboratory, IRCCS San Raffaele Roma, Rome, Italy.
³³ Centre for Age-Related Medicine (SESAM), Stavanger University Hospital, Stavanger, Norway; Grupo de Neurociencias de Antioquia (GNA), Universidad de Antioquia, Medellín, Colombia.
³⁴ Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology (KAIST), Daejeon 34141, South Korea.
³⁵ Aging Brain and Cognition Laboratory, Department of Behavioral Science, College of Medicine, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, USA; Sanders Brown Center on Aging, College of Medicine, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, USA.
³⁶ Department of Biomedical Physics, Faculty of Physics, University of Warsaw, Poland.
³⁷ Human Physiology Unit, Department of Neuroscience and Rehabilitation, University of Ferrara, Ferrara, Italy; Experimental Neuropsychophysiology Laboratory, IRCCS Santa Lucia Foundation, Rome, Italy.
³⁸ Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada.
³⁹ Real World Evidence & Medical Value, Global Medical Affairs, Neurology, Eisai Inc., New Jersey, USA.
⁴⁰ Department of Physiology and Pharmacology "Vittorio Erspamer," Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy; Oasi Research Institute - IRCCS, Troina, Italy.
⁴¹ Oasi Research Institute - IRCCS, Troina, Italy.
⁴² Center For Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience, Complutense University of Madrid, Spain.
⁴³ Department of Psychology, Catholic University of Sacred Heart, Milan, Italy; Memory Clinic, Foundation Policlinico Agostino Gemelli IRCCS, Rome, Italy.
⁴⁴ Institute for Advanced Biomedical Technologies (ITAB), "G. d'Annunzio" University of Chieti and Pescara, Chieti, Italy; Department of Engineering and Geology, "G. d'Annunzio" University of Chieti and Pescara, Pescara, Italy.
⁴⁵ Department of Psychological Sciences & Health, University of Strathclyde, Graham Hills Building, 40 George Street, Glasgow, UK.
⁴⁶ Latin American Brain Health Institute (BrainLat), Universidad Adolfo Ibañez, Santiago, Chile; Cognitive Neuroscience Center, Universidad de San Andrés, Victoria, Buenos Aires, Argentina; Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
⁴⁷ Alzheimer's Rehabilitation Operative Unit, IRCCS Istituto Centro San Giovanni di Dio Fatebenefratelli, 25125 Brescia, Italy.
⁴⁸ School of Psychology, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK; NIHR Leeds Biomedical Research Centre, Leeds, UK.
⁴⁹ IRCCS Synlab SDN, Naples, Italy.
⁵⁰ Brain Connectivity Laboratory, Department of Neuroscience and Neurorehabilitation, IRCCS San Raffaele Roma, Rome, Italy.
⁵¹ Neurophysiology Laboratory GNA-GRUNECO. Universidad de Antioquia, Antioquia, Colombia.
⁵² Neurology Unit, Department of Clinical and Experimental Sciences, University of Brescia, Brescia, Italy; Department of Continuity of Care and Frailty, Neurology Unit, ASST Spedali Civili Hospital, Brescia, Italy; Neurobiorepository and Laboratory of Advanced Biological Markers, University of Brescia, ASST Spedali Civili Hospital, Brescia, Italy; Laboratory of Digital Neurology and Biosensors, University of Brescia, Brescia, Italy; Brain Health Center, University of Brescia, Brescia, Italy.
⁵³ Department of Neurosciences, Rehabilitation, Ophthalmology, Genetics, Maternal and Child Health, (DINOGMI), University of Genoa, Genoa, Italy; IRCCS Ospedale Policlinico San Martino, Genova, Italy.
⁵⁴ The KEY Institute for Brain-Mind Research, University Hospital of Psychiatry, Zurich, Switzerland.
⁵⁵ Department of Neurology, Ludwig-Maximilians University Munich, Munich, Germany; University Medical Center Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany.
⁵⁶ Escuela de Fonoaudiología, Facultad de Odontología y Ciencias de la Rehabilitación, Universidad San Sebastián, Santiago, Chile.
⁵⁷ Normandie Univ, UNICAEN, INSERM, U1237, PhIND "Physiopathology and Imaging of Neurological Disorders", NeuroPresage Team, GIP Cyceron, 14000 Caen, France.
⁵⁸ Berlin Institute of Health, Charité, Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany; Department of Neurology with Experimental Neurology, Charité, Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany; Bernstein Focus State Dependencies of Learning and Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, Berlin, Germany; Einstein Center for Neuroscience Berlin, Berlin, Germany; Einstein Center Digital Future, Berlin, Germany.
⁵⁹ Pontificia Universidad Javeriana (PhD Program in Neuroscience), Bogotá, Colombia; Center of Memory and Cognition Intellectus, Hospital Universitario San Ignacio Bogotá, San Ignacio, Colombia.
⁶⁰ IRCCS Synlab SDN, Naples, Italy; Department of Medical, Movement and Wellbeing Sciences, University of Naples Parthenope, Naples, Italy.
⁶¹ Translational and Clinical Research Institute, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK.
⁶² Department of Clinical Neurophysiology, Aarhus University Hospital, Aarhus, Denmark.
⁶³ Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR), Istituto di Scienze e Tecnologie della Cognizione (ISTC), Roma, Italy.
⁶⁴ German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) Rostock, Rostock, Germany.
⁶⁵ Department of Bioinformatics, Fraunhofer Institute for Algorithms and Scientific Computing (SCAI), Sankt Augustin, Germany.
⁶⁶ Neurophysiology of Epilepsy Unit, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA.
⁶⁷ Cuban Center for Neuroscience, Havana, Cuba.
⁶⁸ Cuban Center for Neuroscience, Havana, Cuba; The Clinical Hospital of Chengdu Brain Science Institute, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China.
⁶⁹ Universidad de los Andes, Bogota, Colombia; Brain Connectivity Laboratory, Department of Neuroscience and Neurorehabilitation, IRCCS San Raffaele Roma, Rome, Italy.
⁷⁰ Department of Neurology, David Geffen School of Medicine at University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
⁷¹ The Clinical Hospital of Chengdu Brain Science Institute, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China.
⁷² Department of Neurology, Faculty of Medicine, Dokuz Eylül University, İzmir, Turkey; Izmir Biomedicine and Genome Center, Izmir, Turkey.
⁷³ Department of Neurology & Stroke, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany; Hertie Institute for Clinical Brain Research, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany.
⁷⁴ Neurocognitive Research Centre, Nyírő Gyula National Institute of Psychiatry and Addictology, Budapest, Hungary; Department of Neurosurgery and Neurointervention and Department of Neurology, Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary.

PMID: 39978053
DOI: 10.1016/j.clinph.2025.02.256

Free article

Alpha rhythm and Alzheimer's disease: Has Hans Berger's dream come true?

Claudio Babiloni et al. Clin Neurophysiol. 2025 Apr.

Free article

. 2025 Apr:172:33-50.

doi: 10.1016/j.clinph.2025.02.256. Epub 2025 Feb 13.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Department of Physiology and Pharmacology "Vittorio Erspamer," Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy; San Raffaele of Cassino, Cassino, (FR), Italy. Electronic address: claudio.babiloni@uniroma1.it.
² Cognition and Brain Integration Laboratory, Neurosciences, Huntington Medical Research Institutes, Pasadena, CA, USA.
³ Universidad de los Andes, Bogota, Colombia; Global Brain Health Institute (GBHI), University of California, San Francisco, USA; Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.
⁴ Brain & Behaviour Research Institute and School of Psychology, University of Wollongong, Wollongong 2522, Australia.
⁵ Neurology Unit, Department of Medical, Surgical and Health Sciences, University of Trieste, Trieste, Italy.
⁶ Department of Biomedical Physics, Faculty of Physics, University of Warsaw, Poland; Nalecz Institute of Biocybernetics and Biomedical Engineering, Warsaw, Poland.
⁷ Department of Medicine, Aging Sciences University G. d'Annunzio of Chieti-Pescara Chieti 66100 Chieti, Italy.
⁸ Neurology Unit, Department of Clinical and Experimental Sciences, University of Brescia, Brescia, Italy; Molecular Markers Laboratory, IRCCS Istituto Centro San Giovanni di Dio Fatebenefratelli, Brescia 25125, Italy.
⁹ Facultad de Psicología, Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain.
¹⁰ Department of Human Neuroscience, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy.
¹¹ Brain Connectivity Laboratory, Department of Neuroscience and Neurorehabilitation, IRCCS San Raffaele Roma, Rome, Italy; Department of Theoretical and Applied Sciences, eCampus University, Novedrate, Como, Italy.
¹² Department of Physiology and Pharmacology "Vittorio Erspamer," Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy.
¹³ Clinical Neurophysiology, Royal Melbourne Hospital, Parkville, Melbourne, Australia.
¹⁴ Department of Human Neuroscience, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy; IRCCS Neuromed, Pozzilli, Italy.
¹⁵ Latin American Brain Health Institute (BrainLat), Universidad Adolfo Ibañez, Santiago, Chile.
¹⁶ Department of Neuroscience, Imaging and Clinical Sciences, "G. d'Annunzio" University of Chieti and Pescara, Chieti, Italy; Institute for Advanced Biomedical Technologies (ITAB), "G. d'Annunzio" University of Chieti and Pescara, Chieti, Italy.
¹⁷ Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Department of Neurology, Bronx, NY 10461, USA.
¹⁸ Institute for Imaging, Data and Communications, School of Engineering, University of Edinburgh, UK.
¹⁹ The University of Chicago Division of the Biological Sciences 5841 S Maryland Avenue Chicago, IL 60637, USA; Global Brain Health Institute (GBHI), Trinity College Dublin, Ireland.
²⁰ Engineering, Modeling and Applied Social Sciences Center, Federal University of ABC, Santo André, Brazil.
²¹ Department of Neurology, Hospitals of the University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland.
²² Department of Biophysics, School of Medicine, Istanbul Medipol University, Istanbul, Turkey; Research Institute for Health Sciences and Technologies (SABITA), Istanbul Medipol University, Istanbul, Turkey.
²³ Department of Neurology, Shenzhen People's Hospital and The First Affiliated Hospital, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China; Shenzhen Bay Laboratory, Shenzhen, China; Tianjin Huanhu Hospital, Tianjin, China.
²⁴ Cognito Therapeutics, Cambridge, MA, USA; Department of Comparative Medicine, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA.
²⁵ Human Motor Control Section, Medical Neurology Branch, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, National Institutes of Health, Building 10, Room 7D37, 10 Center Drive, Bethesda, MD 20892-1428, USA.
²⁶ Sorbonne University, Alzheimer Precision Medicine, AP-HP, Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, Boulevard de l'hôpital, F-75013 Paris, France.
²⁷ Research Institute for Health Sciences and Technologies (SABITA), Istanbul Medipol University, Istanbul, Turkey; Department of Neurology, School of Medicine, Istanbul Medipol University, Istanbul, Turkey.
²⁸ Department of Neurology, Oslo University Hospital, Oslo, Norway.
²⁹ MINDIG, F-35000 Rennes, France; School of Science and Engineering, Reykjavik University, Reykjavik, Iceland.
³⁰ Neurocognitive Research Centre, Nyírő Gyula National Institute of Psychiatry and Addictology, Budapest, Hungary; Department of Anatomy, Histology and Embryology, Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary; Research Centre for Natural Sciences, HUN-REN, Budapest, Hungary.
³¹ Latin American Brain Health Institute (BrainLat), Universidad Adolfo Ibañez, Santiago, Chile; Global Brain Health Institute (GBHI), Trinity College Dublin, Ireland; Cognitive Neuroscience Center, Universidad de San Andrés, Victoria, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
³² Rehabilitation Bioengineering Laboratory, IRCCS San Raffaele Roma, Rome, Italy.
³³ Centre for Age-Related Medicine (SESAM), Stavanger University Hospital, Stavanger, Norway; Grupo de Neurociencias de Antioquia (GNA), Universidad de Antioquia, Medellín, Colombia.
³⁴ Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology (KAIST), Daejeon 34141, South Korea.
³⁵ Aging Brain and Cognition Laboratory, Department of Behavioral Science, College of Medicine, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, USA; Sanders Brown Center on Aging, College of Medicine, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, USA.
³⁶ Department of Biomedical Physics, Faculty of Physics, University of Warsaw, Poland.
³⁷ Human Physiology Unit, Department of Neuroscience and Rehabilitation, University of Ferrara, Ferrara, Italy; Experimental Neuropsychophysiology Laboratory, IRCCS Santa Lucia Foundation, Rome, Italy.
³⁸ Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada.
³⁹ Real World Evidence & Medical Value, Global Medical Affairs, Neurology, Eisai Inc., New Jersey, USA.
⁴⁰ Department of Physiology and Pharmacology "Vittorio Erspamer," Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy; Oasi Research Institute - IRCCS, Troina, Italy.
⁴¹ Oasi Research Institute - IRCCS, Troina, Italy.
⁴² Center For Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience, Complutense University of Madrid, Spain.
⁴³ Department of Psychology, Catholic University of Sacred Heart, Milan, Italy; Memory Clinic, Foundation Policlinico Agostino Gemelli IRCCS, Rome, Italy.
⁴⁴ Institute for Advanced Biomedical Technologies (ITAB), "G. d'Annunzio" University of Chieti and Pescara, Chieti, Italy; Department of Engineering and Geology, "G. d'Annunzio" University of Chieti and Pescara, Pescara, Italy.
⁴⁵ Department of Psychological Sciences & Health, University of Strathclyde, Graham Hills Building, 40 George Street, Glasgow, UK.
⁴⁶ Latin American Brain Health Institute (BrainLat), Universidad Adolfo Ibañez, Santiago, Chile; Cognitive Neuroscience Center, Universidad de San Andrés, Victoria, Buenos Aires, Argentina; Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
⁴⁷ Alzheimer's Rehabilitation Operative Unit, IRCCS Istituto Centro San Giovanni di Dio Fatebenefratelli, 25125 Brescia, Italy.
⁴⁸ School of Psychology, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK; NIHR Leeds Biomedical Research Centre, Leeds, UK.
⁴⁹ IRCCS Synlab SDN, Naples, Italy.
⁵⁰ Brain Connectivity Laboratory, Department of Neuroscience and Neurorehabilitation, IRCCS San Raffaele Roma, Rome, Italy.
⁵¹ Neurophysiology Laboratory GNA-GRUNECO. Universidad de Antioquia, Antioquia, Colombia.
⁵² Neurology Unit, Department of Clinical and Experimental Sciences, University of Brescia, Brescia, Italy; Department of Continuity of Care and Frailty, Neurology Unit, ASST Spedali Civili Hospital, Brescia, Italy; Neurobiorepository and Laboratory of Advanced Biological Markers, University of Brescia, ASST Spedali Civili Hospital, Brescia, Italy; Laboratory of Digital Neurology and Biosensors, University of Brescia, Brescia, Italy; Brain Health Center, University of Brescia, Brescia, Italy.
⁵³ Department of Neurosciences, Rehabilitation, Ophthalmology, Genetics, Maternal and Child Health, (DINOGMI), University of Genoa, Genoa, Italy; IRCCS Ospedale Policlinico San Martino, Genova, Italy.
⁵⁴ The KEY Institute for Brain-Mind Research, University Hospital of Psychiatry, Zurich, Switzerland.
⁵⁵ Department of Neurology, Ludwig-Maximilians University Munich, Munich, Germany; University Medical Center Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany.
⁵⁶ Escuela de Fonoaudiología, Facultad de Odontología y Ciencias de la Rehabilitación, Universidad San Sebastián, Santiago, Chile.
⁵⁷ Normandie Univ, UNICAEN, INSERM, U1237, PhIND "Physiopathology and Imaging of Neurological Disorders", NeuroPresage Team, GIP Cyceron, 14000 Caen, France.
⁵⁸ Berlin Institute of Health, Charité, Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany; Department of Neurology with Experimental Neurology, Charité, Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany; Bernstein Focus State Dependencies of Learning and Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, Berlin, Germany; Einstein Center for Neuroscience Berlin, Berlin, Germany; Einstein Center Digital Future, Berlin, Germany.
⁵⁹ Pontificia Universidad Javeriana (PhD Program in Neuroscience), Bogotá, Colombia; Center of Memory and Cognition Intellectus, Hospital Universitario San Ignacio Bogotá, San Ignacio, Colombia.
⁶⁰ IRCCS Synlab SDN, Naples, Italy; Department of Medical, Movement and Wellbeing Sciences, University of Naples Parthenope, Naples, Italy.
⁶¹ Translational and Clinical Research Institute, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK.
⁶² Department of Clinical Neurophysiology, Aarhus University Hospital, Aarhus, Denmark.
⁶³ Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR), Istituto di Scienze e Tecnologie della Cognizione (ISTC), Roma, Italy.
⁶⁴ German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) Rostock, Rostock, Germany.
⁶⁵ Department of Bioinformatics, Fraunhofer Institute for Algorithms and Scientific Computing (SCAI), Sankt Augustin, Germany.
⁶⁶ Neurophysiology of Epilepsy Unit, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA.
⁶⁷ Cuban Center for Neuroscience, Havana, Cuba.
⁶⁸ Cuban Center for Neuroscience, Havana, Cuba; The Clinical Hospital of Chengdu Brain Science Institute, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China.
⁶⁹ Universidad de los Andes, Bogota, Colombia; Brain Connectivity Laboratory, Department of Neuroscience and Neurorehabilitation, IRCCS San Raffaele Roma, Rome, Italy.
⁷⁰ Department of Neurology, David Geffen School of Medicine at University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
⁷¹ The Clinical Hospital of Chengdu Brain Science Institute, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China.
⁷² Department of Neurology, Faculty of Medicine, Dokuz Eylül University, İzmir, Turkey; Izmir Biomedicine and Genome Center, Izmir, Turkey.
⁷³ Department of Neurology & Stroke, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany; Hertie Institute for Clinical Brain Research, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany.
⁷⁴ Neurocognitive Research Centre, Nyírő Gyula National Institute of Psychiatry and Addictology, Budapest, Hungary; Department of Neurosurgery and Neurointervention and Department of Neurology, Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary.

PMID: 39978053
DOI: 10.1016/j.clinph.2025.02.256

Abstract

In this "centenary" paper, an expert panel revisited Hans Berger's groundbreaking discovery of human restingstate electroencephalographic (rsEEG) alpha rhythms (8-12 Hz) in 1924, his foresight of substantial clinical applications in patients with "senile dementia," and new developments in the field, focusing on Alzheimer's disease (AD), the most prevalent cause of dementia in pathological aging. Clinical guidelines issued in 2024 by the US National Institute on Aging-Alzheimer's Association (NIA-AA) and the European Neuroscience Societies did not endorse routine use of rsEEG biomarkers in the clinical workup of older adults with cognitive impairment. Nevertheless, the expert panel highlighted decades of research from independent workgroups and different techniques showing consistent evidence that abnormalities in rsEEG delta, theta, and alpha rhythms (< 30 Hz) observed in AD patients correlate with wellestablished AD biomarkers of neuropathology, neurodegeneration, and cognitive decline. We posit that these abnormalities may reflect alterations in oscillatory synchronization within subcortical and cortical circuits, inducing cortical inhibitory-excitatory imbalance (in some cases leading to epileptiform activity) and vigilance dysfunctions (e.g., mental fatigue and drowsiness), which may impact AD patients' quality of life. Berger's vision of using EEG to understand and manage dementia in pathological aging is still actual.

Keywords: Alzheimer’s Disease (AD); Biomarkers; Delta, Theta, and Alpha Rhythms; Hans Berger; Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI); Resting-State Electroencephalographic (rsEEG) Rhythms.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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Alpha rhythm and Alzheimer's disease: Has Hans Berger's dream come true?

Affiliations

Alpha rhythm and Alzheimer's disease: Has Hans Berger's dream come true?

Authors

Affiliations

Abstract

Conflict of interest statement

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MeSH terms

Grants and funding

LinkOut - more resources

Full Text Sources

Medical