Functional magnetic resonance imaging of cholinergic modulation in mild cognitive impairment.
OBJECTIVE
Mild cognitive impairment often represents the earliest clinical phase of Alzheimer's disease and is thought to involve synaptic dysfunction. Functional neuroimaging methods may be sensitive to these early physiologic changes and may be useful in early detection, therapeutic monitoring, and prediction of treatment response and other clinical outcomes. This review will focus on functional magnetic resonance imaging and its use in measuring the effects of cholinergic modulation in mild cognitive impairment.


RESULTS
Functional magnetic resonance imaging has begun to be applied to measure changes in regional brain activation during cognitive task performance after pharmacologic manipulation. In mild cognitive impairment, recent reports have appeared demonstrating alterations in neocortical activation after acute and prolonged administration of acetylcholinesterase inhibitors. These functional changes may relate to both behavioral performance and measures of brain structure (e.g., hippocampal volume).


CONCLUSIONS
Pharmacologic functional magnetic resonance imaging is a rapidly emerging field, with applications in both basic human neuroscience and clinical psychiatry and neurology. Its use in mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease may provide novel insights into the cholinergic system, memory, and neurodegenerative disease.
Dickerson
Bradford C
BC
Gerontology Research Unit, Department of Neurology, Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA 02129, USA. bradd@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu
D000109:Acetylcholine / Q000378:metabolism; D001921:Brain / Q000187:drug effects / Q000473:pathology; D002800:Cholinesterase Inhibitors / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000378:metabolism; D006801:Humans; D009682:Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy / Q000379:methods*; D012720:Severity of Illness Index
D002800:Cholinesterase Inhibitors; D000109:Acetylcholine