Investigation of Functional Connectivity Changes in Alzheimer Disease Using Degree Centrality

Yong Zhang¹, He Wang¹, Guang Cao¹, Lin Zhang², Gui-Xiang Zhang²

This preliminary study investigated functional connectivity changes in Alzheimers Disease (AD) using degree centrality (DC), a novel resting-state fMRI parameter to provide voxel-wise whole brain functional connectivity measurement. Six AD patients and nine age- and gender-matched healthy controls were recruited for comparison. In additional to the deceased DC regions in bilateral hippocampus and frontal lobe observed for normal aging controls and AD patients, the right insular showed increased DC for normal controls but decreased DC for AD patients, which might provide interesting insight into the mechanism of the disease.