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Early dysfunction of functional connectivity in healthy elderly with subjective memory complaints

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A Correction to this article was published on 23 March 2022

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Abstract

It is still an open question whether subjective memory complaints (SMC) can actually be considered to be clinically relevant predictors for the development of an objective memory impairment and even dementia. There is growing evidence that suggests that SMC are associated with an increased risk of dementia and with the presence of biological correlates of early Alzheimer's disease. In this paper, in order to shed some light on this issue, we try to discern whether subjects with SMC showed a different profile of functional connectivity compared with subjects with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and healthy elderly subjects. In the present study, we compare the degree of synchronization of brain signals recorded with magnetoencephalography between three groups of subjects (56 in total): 19 with MCI, 12 with SMC and 25 healthy controls during a memory task. Synchronization likelihood, an index based on the theory of nonlinear dynamical systems, was used to measure functional connectivity. Briefly, results show that subjects with SMC have a very similar pattern of connectivity to control group, but on average, they present a lower synchronization value. These results could indicate that SMC are representing an initial stage with a hypo-synchronization (in comparison with the control group) where the brain system is still not compensating for the failing memory networks, but behaving as controls when compared with the MCI subjects.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by two grants for the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (SEJ-2006-07560; PSI2009-14415-C03-01).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience, Centre for Biomedical Technology (Complutense University of Madrid and Technical University of Madrid), Madrid, Spain

    Ricardo Bajo, Nazareth P. Castellanos, Maria Eugenia López, Evgenia Baykova, Sara Aurtenetxe, Francisco Del Pozo & Fernando Maestu

  2. Departamento de Psicología Básica II (Procesos Cognitivos), Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    Maria Eugenia López, José María Ruiz, Sara Aurtenetxe & Fernando Maestu

  3. Centro de Prevención del Deterioro Cognitivo del Ayuntamiento de Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    José María Ruiz, Pedro Montejo, Mercedes Montenegro & Marcos Llanero

  4. Departamento de Psicología Básica I, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    Mercedes Montenegro & Nuria Paul

  5. Hospital Universitario San Carlos, Servicio de Geriatría Unidad de Memoria, Madrid, Spain

    Pedro Gil & Raquel Yubero

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  1. Ricardo Bajo
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  2. Nazareth P. Castellanos
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  3. Maria Eugenia López
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  4. José María Ruiz
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  5. Pedro Montejo
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  6. Mercedes Montenegro
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  7. Marcos Llanero
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  8. Pedro Gil
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  9. Raquel Yubero
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  10. Evgenia Baykova
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  11. Nuria Paul
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  12. Sara Aurtenetxe
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  13. Francisco Del Pozo
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  14. Fernando Maestu
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Correspondence to Ricardo Bajo.

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Bajo, R., Castellanos, N.P., López, M.E. et al. Early dysfunction of functional connectivity in healthy elderly with subjective memory complaints. AGE 34, 497–506 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11357-011-9241-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11357-011-9241-5

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