Altered brain spontaneous activity in patients with cerebral small vessel disease using the amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation of different frequency bands

Sina Chen; Ruiwang Huang; Mingxian Zhang; Xiaohuang Huang; Shuiqiao Ling; Shuxue Liu; Nan Yang

doi:10.3389/fnins.2023.1282496

Altered brain spontaneous activity in patients with cerebral small vessel disease using the amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation of different frequency bands

Front Neurosci. 2023 Nov 16:17:1282496. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2023.1282496. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Sina Chen¹, Ruiwang Huang², Mingxian Zhang², Xiaohuang Huang¹, Shuiqiao Ling¹, Shuxue Liu¹, Nan Yang¹

Affiliations

¹ Zhongshan Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Zhongshan, Guangdong, China.
² Center for Study of Applied Psychology, School of Psychology, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China.

Abstract

Background: Previous studies showed that cerebral small vessel disease (cSVD) is a leading cause of cognitive decline in elderly people and the development of Alzheimer's disease. Although brain structural changes of cSVD have been documented well, it remains unclear about the properties of brain intrinsic spontaneous activity in patients with cSVD.

Methods: We collected resting-state fMRI (rs-fMRI) and T1-weighted 3D high-resolution brain structural images from 41 cSVD patients and 32 healthy controls (HC). By estimating the amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (ALFF) under three different frequency bands (typical band: 0.01-0.1 Hz; slow-4: 0.027-0.073 Hz; and slow-5: 0.01-0.027 Hz) in the whole-brain, we analyzed band-specific ALFF differences between the cSVD patients and controls.

Results: The cSVD patients showed uniformly lower ALFF than the healthy controls in the typical and slow-4 bands (p_FWE < 0.05). In the typical band, cSVD patients showed lower ALFF involving voxels of the fusiform, hippocampus, inferior occipital cortex, middle occipital cortex, insula, inferior frontal cortex, rolandic operculum, and cerebellum compared with the controls. In the slow-4 band, cSVD patients showed lower ALFF involving voxels of the cerebellum, hippocampus, occipital, and fusiform compared with the controls. However, there is no significant between-group difference of ALFF in the slow-5 band. Moreover, we found significant "group × frequency" interactions in the left precuneus.

Conclusion: Our results suggested that brain intrinsic spontaneous activity of cSVD patients was abnormal and showed a frequency-specific characteristic. The ALFF in the slow-4 band may be more sensitive to detecting a malfunction in cSVD patients.

Keywords: amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation; cerebral microbleed; cerebral small vessel disease; lacune; mild cognitive impairment; spontaneous brain activity; white matter hyperintensity.

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare that no financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.