Alteration of Integrity and Patterns of the Memory Modules in Mild Cognitive Impairment and Alzheimer's Disease

Guangyu Chen¹, Piero Antuono², Shi-Jiang Li¹

We tested a hypothesis that the integrity and organization patterns of specific modules (HIP-TP) responsible for memory processing are altered in Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer's disease (AD) subjects, in comparison with cognitively normal (CN) subjects. HIP-TP in CN is very well organized and has highly directed connected bilateral symmetric regions, but the MCI and AD HIP-TP module have fewer directed left and right connections, and the modules are hardly symmetric and organized. There is a potential that patterns of the HIP-TP modules could be employed to distinguish MCI subjects from CN subjects.