title: Differences in Aβ brain networks in Alzheimer's disease and healthy controls.
abstract: The prevailing β-amyloid (Aβ)-cascade hypothesis is the most classical Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathogenesis. In this hypothesis, excessive Aβ plaque deposition in human brain is considered to be the cause of AD. Carbon 11-labeled Pittsburgh compound B Positron emission tomography (11C-PiB PET) is the latest technology to detect Aβ plaques in vivo. Thus, it is possible to investigate the difference of Aβ brain networks between AD patients and Health Controls (HC) by analyzing 11C-PiB PET images. In this study, a graph-theoretical method was employed to investigate the topological properties of Aβ networks in 18 Chinese AD patients and 16 HC subjects from Huashan Hospital, Shanghai. The results showed that both groups demonstrated small-world property, and this property was more obvious in AD group. Additionally, the clustering coefficients and path lengths were significantly lower in AD group. The global efficiency was larger in AD than in HC. A direct comparison between with and without regression found that sex, age and weight had no significant effect on the Aβ network. Moreover, three altered regions in AD group were identified, including left cuneus (CUN.L), right caudate nucleus (CAU.R) and left superior frontal gyrus (SFGdor. L). A voxel-wise correlation analysis showed that in AD patients, the regions of strengthened connection with CUN.L were mainly located in frontal cortex and parietal cortex, the regions of strengthen connection with CAU.R were mainly located in temporal cortex. Finally, a machine learning based analysis demonstrated that the three regions could be better biomarkers than the whole brain for AD classification.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biomedical Engineering, School of Communication and Information Technology, Shanghai University, Shanghai, China.
authors.forename: Huoqiang
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Duan
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biomedical Engineering, School of Communication and Information Technology, Shanghai University, Shanghai, China. Electronic address: jiangjiehui@shu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Jiehui
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biomedical Engineering, School of Communication and Information Technology, Shanghai University, Shanghai, China.
authors.forename: Jun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biomedical Engineering, School of Communication and Information Technology, Shanghai University, Shanghai, China.
authors.forename: Hucheng
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: PET Center, Huashan Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai, China. Electronic address: skywalkerhang@hotmail.com.
authors.forename: Zhemin
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: Shanghai Geriatric Institute of Chinese Medicine, Shanghai, China. Electronic address: yzh1109@hotmail.com.
authors.forename: Zhihua
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biomedical Engineering, School of Communication and Information Technology, Shanghai University, Shanghai, China.
authors.forename: Zhuangzhi
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Yan
mesh_terms: D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000378:metabolism*; D016229:Amyloid beta-Peptides / Q000378:metabolism*; D000814:Aniline Compounds; D052160:Benzothiazoles; D001835:Body Weight; D001921:Brain / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000378:metabolism*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D066264:Datasets as Topic; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009434:Neural Pathways / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000378:metabolism; D049268:Positron-Emission Tomography; D012372:ROC Curve; D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012737:Sex Factors; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted; D013844:Thiazoles
chemical_list: C475519:2-(4'-(methylamino)phenyl)-6-hydroxybenzothiazole; D016229:Amyloid beta-Peptides; D000814:Aniline Compounds; D052160:Benzothiazoles; D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals; D013844:Thiazoles
keywords: 11C-PiB PET; Alzheimer's disease; Brain networks; Graph theoretical; β-amyloid (Aβ)-cascade