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“Small World” architecture in brain connectivity and hippocampal volume in Alzheimer’s disease: a study via graph theory from EEG data

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Abstract

Brain imaging plays an important role in the study of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), where atrophy has been found to occur in the hippocampal formation during the very early disease stages and to progress in parallel with the disease’s evolution. The aim of the present study was to evaluate a possible correlation between “Small World” characteristics of the brain connectivity architecture—as extracted from EEG recordings—and hippocampal volume in AD patients. A dataset of 144 subjects, including 110 AD (MMSE 21.3) and 34 healthy Nold (MMSE 29.8) individuals, was evaluated. Weighted and undirected networks were built by the eLORETA solutions of the cortical sources’ activities moving from EEG recordings. The evaluation of the hippocampal volume was carried out on a subgroup of 60 AD patients who received a high-resolution T1-weighted sequence and underwent processing for surface-based cortex reconstruction and volumetric segmentation using the Freesurfer image analysis software. Results showed that, quantitatively, more correlation was observed in the right hemisphere, but the same trend was seen in both hemispheres. Alpha band connectivity was negatively correlated, while slow (delta) and fast-frequency (beta, gamma) bands positively correlated with hippocampal volume. Namely, the larger the hippocampal volume, the lower the alpha and the higher the delta, beta, and gamma Small World characteristics of connectivity. Accordingly, the Small World connectivity pattern could represent a functional counterpart of structural hippocampal atrophying and related-network disconnection.

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Acknowledgments

Dr. Francesca Miraglia participated to this study in the framework of her Ph.D. program at the Doctoral School in Neuroscience, Department of Neuroscience, Catholic University of Rome, Italy. This work was supported by the Italian Ministry of Health for Institutional Research (Ricerca corrente) and by the Italian Ministry of Instruction, University and Research MIUR (“Approccio integrato clinico e sperimentale allo studio dell’invecchiamento cerebrale e delle malattie neurodegenerative: basi molecolari, epidemiologia genetica, neuroimaging multimodale e farmacogenetica. (Merit)” and “Functional connectivity and neuroplasticity in physiological and pathological aging. Prot. 2010SH7H3F (ConnAge)” PRIN project).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Brain Connectivity Laboratory, IRCCS San Raffaele Pisana, Via Val Cannuta, 247, 00166, Rome, Italy

    Fabrizio Vecchio, Francesca Miraglia, Giuseppe Granata, Roberto Romanello & Paolo Maria Rossini

  2. IRCCS Centro Neurolesi Bonino-Pulejo, Messina, Italy

    Francesca Piludu & Placido Bramanti

  3. Department of Radiologic Sciences, Catholic University, Policlinic A. Gemelli, Rome, Italy

    Francesca Piludu, Valeria Onofrj & Cesare Colosimo

  4. Department of Neuorscience, Imaging and Clinical Sciences, University of Chieti, Chieti, Italy

    Massimo Caulo

  5. Department of Geriatrics, Neuroscience & Orthopedics, Institute of Neurology, Catholic University, Policlinic A. Gemelli, Rome, Italy

    Paolo Maria Rossini

Authors
  1. Fabrizio Vecchio
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  2. Francesca Miraglia
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  3. Francesca Piludu
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  4. Giuseppe Granata
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  5. Roberto Romanello
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  6. Massimo Caulo
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  7. Valeria Onofrj
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  8. Placido Bramanti
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  9. Cesare Colosimo
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  10. Paolo Maria Rossini
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Fabrizio Vecchio.

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Funding

This work was supported by the Italian Ministry of Health for Institutional Research (Ricerca corrente) and by the Italian Ministry of Instruction, University and Research MIUR (“Approccio integrato clinico e sperimentale allo studio dell’invecchiamento cerebrale e delle malattie neurodegenerative: basi molecolari, epidemiologia genetica, neuroimaging multimodale e farmacogenetica. (Merit)” and “Functional connectivity and neuroplasticity in physiological and pathological aging. Prot. 2010SH7H3F (ConnAge)” PRIN project).

Conflict of interest

All authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Highlights

‐ Functional connectivity and optimal network structure is essential for information processing in the brain.

‐ Progressive structural changes in the brain of Alzheimer Patients are associated with changes in connectivity and networks architecture.

‐ Aim of the present study was to correlate the network properties from EEG signals with hippocampal atrophy in cognitive decline patients (Alzheimer) by graph analysis tools.

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Vecchio, F., Miraglia, F., Piludu, F. et al. “Small World” architecture in brain connectivity and hippocampal volume in Alzheimer’s disease: a study via graph theory from EEG data. Brain Imaging and Behavior 11, 473–485 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11682-016-9528-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11682-016-9528-3

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