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Apathy is related to reduced activation in cognitive control regions during set-shifting.

ABSTRACT: Apathy is a prominent and influential symptom in several neurological and psychiatric disorders, but it also occurs in the healthy population. It has considerable impact on daily life functioning, in clinical as well as healthy samples. Even though cognitive control is thought to be disrupted in people with apathy, the exact neural underpinnings of apathy remain unclear. Because flexible shifting between behaviors (set-shifting) is crucial for goal-directed behavior, disruptions in set-shifting may underlie apathy. In this study, the neural correlates of apathy during set-shifting were studied in 34 healthy participants with varying levels of apathy, measured by the Apathy Evaluation Scale. During functional MRI scanning participants performed a set-shifting task, distinguishing between behavioral switches (a change in response to different stimuli), cognitive switches (a change in response rule), and salience decoupling (detecting a change in relevant stimuli). Regression analysis was used to assess the relationship between apathy and brain activation. Results showed that higher apathy scores were related to reduced activation in the medial superior frontal gyrus and cerebellum (Crus I/II) during cognitive set-shifting, but not behavioral shifting and salience decoupling. No relationship between apathy and accuracy or response time was found. These results support the idea that alterations in the neural basis of cognitive control, especially cognitive set-shifting, may contribute to apathy. Hum Brain Mapp 38:2722-2733, 2017. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

SUBMITTER: Klaasen NG

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6867069 | biostudies-literature | 2017 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Apathy is related to reduced activation in cognitive control regions during set-shifting.

Klaasen Nicky G NG Kos Claire C Aleman André A Opmeer Esther M EM

Human brain mapping 20170303 5

Apathy is a prominent and influential symptom in several neurological and psychiatric disorders, but it also occurs in the healthy population. It has considerable impact on daily life functioning, in clinical as well as healthy samples. Even though cognitive control is thought to be disrupted in people with apathy, the exact neural underpinnings of apathy remain unclear. Because flexible shifting between behaviors (set-shifting) is crucial for goal-directed behavior, disruptions in set-shifting ...[more]

PMID: 28256779

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Project description:Background: Although increased cognitive activity (CA), both current and past, is known to be associated with a decreased occurrence of Alzheimer's disease (AD) dementia in older adults, the exact neural mechanisms underlying the association between CA during different stages of life and human dementia remain unclear. Therefore, we investigated whether CA during different life stages is associated with cerebral amyloid-beta (A?) pathology and AD-related neurodegeneration in non-demented older adults. Methods: Cross-sectional analyses of data collected between April 2014 and March 2016 from the Korean Brain Aging Study for Early Diagnosis and Prediction of Alzheimer's Disease (KBASE), an ongoing prospective cohort. In total, 321 community-dwelling, non-demented older adults were involved in this study. Cerebral A? deposition and A? positivity were measured using 11C-Pittsburgh compound B (PiB)-positron emission tomography (PET). AD-signature region cerebral glucose metabolism (AD-CMglu) and AD-signature region neurodegeneration (AD-ND) positivity were measured using 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG)-PET. In addition, CA in early, mid, and late life was systematically evaluated using a structured questionnaire. Results: Of the 321 participants, 254 were cognitively normal (CN) and 67 had mild cognitive impairment (MCI). The mean age of participants was 69.6 years old [standard deviation (SD) = 8.0]. Higher early-life CA (CAearly) was associated with significantly increased AD-CMglu (B = 0.035, SE = 0.013, P = 0.009) and a decreasing trend of AD-ND positivity (OR = 0.65, 95% CI 0.43-0.98, P = 0.04) but was not associated with A? deposition or positivity. We observed no association between midlife CA (CAmid) and any AD-related brain changes. Late-life CA (CAlate) showed an association with both global A? deposition and AD-CMglu, although it was not statistically significant. Sensitivity analyses controlling for current depression or conducted only for CN individuals revealed similar results. Conclusion: Our results suggest that CA in early life may be protective against late-life AD-related neurodegeneration, independently of cerebral A? pathology.

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Apathy is related to reduced activation in cognitive control regions during set-shifting.

Publications

Apathy is related to reduced activation in cognitive control regions during set-shifting.

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