Altered temporal correlations in parietal alpha and prefrontal theta oscillations in early-stage Alzheimer disease.
Encoding and retention of information in memory are associated with a sustained increase in the amplitude of neuronal oscillations for up to several seconds. We reasoned that coordination of oscillatory activity over time might be important for memory and, therefore, that the amplitude modulation of oscillations may be abnormal in Alzheimer disease (AD). To test this hypothesis, we measured magnetoencephalography (MEG) during eyes-closed rest in 19 patients diagnosed with early-stage AD and 16 age-matched control subjects and characterized the autocorrelation structure of ongoing oscillations using detrended fluctuation analysis and an analysis of the life- and waiting-time statistics of oscillation bursts. We found that Alzheimer's patients had a strongly reduced incidence of alpha-band oscillation bursts with long life- or waiting-times (< 1 s) over temporo-parietal regions and markedly weaker autocorrelations on long time scales (1-25 seconds). Interestingly, the life- and waiting-times of theta oscillations over medial prefrontal regions were greatly increased. Whereas both temporo-parietal alpha and medial prefrontal theta oscillations are associated with retrieval and retention of information, metabolic and structural deficits in early-stage AD are observed primarily in temporo-parietal areas, suggesting that the enhanced oscillations in medial prefrontal cortex reflect a compensatory mechanism. Together, our results suggest that amplitude modulation of neuronal oscillations is important for cognition and that indices of amplitude dynamics of oscillations may prove useful as neuroimaging biomarkers of early-stage AD.
Montez
Teresa
T
Institute of Biophysics and Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon, Campo Grande, 1749-016 Lisbon, Portugal.
Poil
Simon-Shlomo
SS
Jones
Bethany F
BF
Manshanden
Ilonka
I
Verbunt
Jeroen P A
JP
van Dijk
Bob W
BW
Brussaard
Arjen B
AB
van Ooyen
Arjen
A
Stam
Cornelis J
CJ
Scheltens
Philip
P
Linkenkaer-Hansen
Klaus
K
D000368:Aged; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000503:physiopathology*; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D006801:Humans; D010296:Parietal Lobe / Q000502:physiology*; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000503:physiopathology*