Marco Bozzali1,
Geoff Parker2, Laura Serra1, Roberta Perri3,
Franco Giubilei4, Camillo Marra5, Carlo Caltagirone3,
Mara Cercignani1
1Neuroimaging
Laboratory, Santa Lucia Foundation, Rome, Italy; 2Imaging Science
& Biomedical Engineering, University of Manchester, Manchester, United
Kingdom; 3Department of Clinical & Behavioural Neurology, Santa
Lucia Foundation, Rome, Italy; 4Department of Neurology, II
Faculty of Medicine, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome; 5Institute
of Neurology, Universit Cattolica, Rome, Italy
A recent application of anatomical connectivity mapping (ACM) to Alzheimers disease (AD) patients, has shown expected reductions as well as unexpected increases of structural brain connectivity. The latter finding was interpreted as a possible consequence of processes of brain plasticity driven by treatment with cholinesterase inhibitors (ChEIs). Here, we confirm and extend all preliminary findings by assessing ACM in a larger group of patients with AD, half of them under ChEIs medication and half drug nave. This study further supports the hypothesis that ChEIs induce mechanisms of plasticity in AD brains, which may also interact with measures of global cognition.