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• Clinical Article •
Changes of cerebral functional hierarchy in AD patients based on cerebral-cerebellar connectivity gradients
HE Meirong  MO Xian  YOU Wanfang  SUN Ang  ZHANG Junran 

Cite this article as HE M R, MO X, YOU W F, et al. Changes of cerebral functional hierarchy in AD patients based on cerebral-cerebellar connectivity gradients[J]. Chin J Magn Reson Imaging, 2024, 15(5): 1-7. DOI:10.12015/issn.1674-8034.2024.05.001.


[Abstract] Objective To analyze the functional hierarchy of Alzheimer's disease (AD) cerebral cortex along the brain-cerebellar connectivity gradient and its altered interaction with the cerebellum and the association with cognitive dysfunction using a gradient-based approach.Materials and Methods A total of 33 AD patients and 46 age, sex matched healthy controls (HC) were included based on the publicly available database ANDI. The cerebral-cerebellar functional connectivity gradient of each subject was obtained by nonlinearly decomposing the cerebral-cerebellar resting-state functional connectivity matrix of all subjects, using gradient computation method. Two-sample t-tests were performed to analyze differences of cerebral-cerebellar gradient scores between groups, as well as group's comparisons of functional connectivity between abnormal regions of gradients and cerebellar , and correlation analyses were used to assess the correlation of abnormal gradient scores and connectivity values with scores on clinical scales.Results Compared with healthy controls, AD patients had locally altered gradient scores in the right inferior temporal gyrus (RITG) (t=4.71, P<0.001) which involved in higher cognitive functions, and further functional connectivity analyses based on the gradient-abnormal cerebral region as a seed point showed functional connectivity of RITG to the bilateral Crus Ⅱ region and extending to the Ⅶ B region of the cerebellum (right: t=-4.89, P<0.001; left: t=-4.98, P<0.001) was reduced. Clinical scale correlation analyses showed that connectivity gradient scores in gradient-abnormal brain regions were strongly correlated with Functional Activity Questionnaire (FAQ) scores (r=0.40, P=0.025) in AD patients.Conclusions The abnormal changes in the functional hierarchy of locoregional areas involved in higher cognitive function in AD patients and their reduced functional connectivity with bilateral cerebellar CrusⅡ and Ⅶ B regions may be one of the potential factors for cognitive impairment.
[Keywords] Alzheimer's disease；cerebral-cerebellar connection gradient；resting-state functional connectivity；magnetic resonance imaging；functional hierarchy

HE Meirong1, 2   MO Xian1   YOU Wanfang1   SUN Ang1   ZHANG Junran1*  

1 College of Electrical Engineering, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610065, China

2 College of Electrical Engineering, Northwest Minzu University, Lanzhou 730070, China

Corresponding author: ZHANG J R, E-mail: zhangjunran@126.com

Conflicts of interest   None.

Received  2023-11-02
Accepted  2024-04-30
DOI: 10.12015/issn.1674-8034.2024.05.001
Cite this article as HE M R, MO X, YOU W F, et al. Changes of cerebral functional hierarchy in AD patients based on cerebral-cerebellar connectivity gradients[J]. Chin J Magn Reson Imaging, 2024, 15(5): 1-7. DOI:10.12015/issn.1674-8034.2024.05.001.

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