Imaging the Functional Pathology in ApoE 4 Carriers by the Hippocampus Functional Connectivity

Chunming Xie^1,2, Wenjun Li¹, Piero Antuono³, Jennifer Jones³, Zhilin Wu¹, Shi-Jiang Li¹

The allele 4 of apolipoprotein E (ApoE4) is an established susceptibility gene for late onset Alzheimers disease (AD). Research on the risk factor of AD in the human and animal models has highlighted the important contribution of ApoE4. Despite the extensive work dedicated to investigating the basic neurobiological mechanism of ApoE4 genotype as related to developing AD risk in younger and older populations, little is known about whether and how the ApoE4 genotype affects the functional brain network in middle-aged, cognitively healthy populations of ApoE4 carriers. In the present study, we test the hypothesis that the resting-state functional connectivity between the hippocampus and the rest of the brain regions is reduced among the middle-aged, cognitively healthy APOE4 carriers compared to that of nonAPOE4 carriers. The present results have shown that the alteration of the hippocampal functional connectivity (HFC) pattern is significantly associated with the ApoE4 genotype and that the alteration of the HFC pattern in ApoE4 carriers could serve as a surrogate biomarker for the risk of AD.