title: Rich club network analysis shows distinct patterns of disruption in frontotemporal dementia and Alzheimer's disease.
abstract: Diffusion imaging and brain connectivity analyses can reveal the underlying organizational patterns of the human brain, described as complex networks of densely interlinked regions. Here, we analyzed 1.5-Tesla whole-brain diffusion-weighted images from 64 participants - 15 patients with behavioral variant frontotemporal (bvFTD) dementia, 19 with early-onset Alzheimer's disease (EOAD), and 30 healthy elderly controls. Based on whole-brain tractography, we reconstructed structural brain connectivity networks to map connections between cortical regions. We examined how bvFTD and EOAD disrupt the weighted 'rich club' - a network property where high-degree network nodes are more interconnected than expected by chance. bvFTD disrupts both the nodal and global organization of the network in both low- and high-degree regions of the brain. EOAD targets the global connectivity of the brain, mainly affecting the fiber density of high-degree (highly connected) regions that form the rich club network. These rich club analyses suggest distinct patterns of disruptions among different forms of dementia.
authors.affiliation: Imaging Genetics Center, Institute for Neuroimaging & Informatics, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Madelaine
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Daianu
authors.affiliation: Imaging Genetics Center, Institute for Neuroimaging & Informatics, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Neda
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Jahanshad
authors.affiliation: Imaging Genetics Center, Institute for Neuroimaging & Informatics, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Julio E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Villalon-Reina
authors.affiliation: Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, Department of Neurology, UCLA School of Medicine, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Mario F
authors.initials: MF
authors.lastname: Mendez
authors.affiliation: Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, Department of Neurology, UCLA School of Medicine, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
authors.forename: George
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Bartzokis
authors.affiliation: Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, Department of Neurology, UCLA School of Medicine, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Elvira E
authors.initials: EE
authors.lastname: Jimenez
authors.affiliation: Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, Department of Neurology, UCLA School of Medicine, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Simantini J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Karve
authors.affiliation: Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, Department of Neurology, UCLA School of Medicine, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Joseph
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Barsuglia
authors.affiliation: Imaging Genetics Center, Institute for Neuroimaging & Informatics, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Paul M
authors.initials: PM
authors.lastname: Thompson