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Apolipoprotein E ?4 modulates functional brain connectome in Alzheimer's disease.

ABSTRACT: The apolipoprotein E (APOE) ?4 allele is a well-established genetic risk factor for Alzheimer's disease (AD). Recent research has demonstrated an APOE ?4-mediated modulation of intrinsic functional brain networks in cognitively normal individuals. However, it remains largely unknown whether and how APOE ?4 affects the brain's functional network architecture in patients with AD. Using resting-state functional MRI and graph-theory approaches, we systematically investigated the topological organization of whole-brain functional networks in 16 APOE ?4 carriers and 26 matched noncarriers with AD at three levels: global whole-brain, intermediate module, and regional node/connection. Neuropsychological analysis showed that the APOE ?4 carriers performed worse on delayed memory but better on a late item generation of a verbal fluency task (associated with executive function) than noncarriers. Whole-brain graph analyses revealed that APOE ?4 significantly disrupted whole-brain topological organization as characterized by (i) reduced parallel information transformation efficiency; (ii) decreased intramodular connectivity within the posterior default mode network (pDMN) and intermodular connectivity of the pDMN and executive control network (ECN) with other neuroanatomical systems; and (iii) impaired functional hubs and their rich-club connectivities that primarily involve the pDMN, ECN, and sensorimotor systems. Further simulation analysis indicated that these altered connectivity profiles of the pDMN and ECN largely accounted for the abnormal global network topology. Finally, the changes in network topology exhibited significant correlations with the patients' cognitive performances. Together, our findings suggest that the APOE genotype modulates large-scale brain networks in AD and shed new light on the gene-connectome interaction in this disease.

SUBMITTER: Wang J

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6869368 | biostudies-literature | 2015 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Apolipoprotein E ε4 modulates functional brain connectome in Alzheimer's disease.

Wang Jinhui J Wang Xiao X He Yi Y Yu Xin X Wang Huali H He Yong Y

Human brain mapping 20150124 5

The apolipoprotein E (APOE) ɛ4 allele is a well-established genetic risk factor for Alzheimer's disease (AD). Recent research has demonstrated an APOE ɛ4-mediated modulation of intrinsic functional brain networks in cognitively normal individuals. However, it remains largely unknown whether and how APOE ɛ4 affects the brain's functional network architecture in patients with AD. Using resting-state functional MRI and graph-theory approaches, we systematically investigated the topological organiza ...[more]

PMID: 25619771

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Project description:Alzheimer's disease and progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) represent neurodegenerative tauopathies with predominantly cortical versus subcortical disease burden. In Alzheimer's disease, neuropathology and atrophy preferentially affect 'hub' brain regions that are densely connected. It was unclear whether hubs are differentially affected by neurodegeneration because they are more likely to receive pathological proteins that propagate trans-neuronally, in a prion-like manner, or whether they are selectively vulnerable due to a lack of local trophic factors, higher metabolic demands, or differential gene expression. We assessed the relationship between tau burden and brain functional connectivity, by combining in vivo PET imaging using the ligand AV-1451, and graph theoretic measures of resting state functional MRI in 17 patients with Alzheimer's disease, 17 patients with PSP, and 12 controls. Strongly connected nodes displayed more tau pathology in Alzheimer's disease, independently of intrinsic connectivity network, validating the predictions of theories of trans-neuronal spread but not supporting a role for metabolic demands or deficient trophic support in tau accumulation. This was not a compensatory phenomenon, as the functional consequence of increasing tau burden in Alzheimer's disease was a progressive weakening of the connectivity of these same nodes, reducing weighted degree and local efficiency and resulting in weaker 'small-world' properties. Conversely, in PSP, unlike in Alzheimer's disease, those nodes that accrued pathological tau were those that displayed graph metric properties associated with increased metabolic demand and a lack of trophic support rather than strong functional connectivity. Together, these findings go some way towards explaining why Alzheimer's disease affects large scale connectivity networks throughout cortex while neuropathology in PSP is concentrated in a small number of subcortical structures. Further, we demonstrate that in PSP increasing tau burden in midbrain and deep nuclei was associated with strengthened cortico-cortical functional connectivity. Disrupted cortico-subcortical and cortico-brainstem interactions meant that information transfer took less direct paths, passing through a larger number of cortical nodes, reducing closeness centrality and eigenvector centrality in PSP, while increasing weighted degree, clustering, betweenness centrality and local efficiency. Our results have wide-ranging implications, from the validation of models of tau trafficking in humans to understanding the relationship between regional tau burden and brain functional reorganization.

Dataset Information

Apolipoprotein E ?4 modulates functional brain connectome in Alzheimer's disease.

Publications

Apolipoprotein E ε4 modulates functional brain connectome in Alzheimer's disease.

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