Disrupted single-subject gray matter networks are associated with cognitive decline and cortical atrophy in Alzheimer's disease

Background Research has shown disrupted structural network measures related to cognitive decline and future cortical atrophy during the progression of Alzheimer's disease (AD). However, evidence regarding the individual variability of gray matter network measures and the associations with concurrent cognitive decline and cortical atrophy related to AD is still sparse.Objective To investigate whether alterations in single-subject gray matter networks are related to concurrent cognitive decline and cortical gray matter atrophy during AD progression.Methods We analyzed structural MRI data from 185 cognitively normal (CN), 150 mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and 153 AD participants, and calculated the global network metrics of gray matter networks for each participant. We examined the alterations of single-subject gray matter networks in patients with MCI and AD, and investigated the associations of network metrics with concurrent cognitive decline and cortical gray matter atrophy.Results The small-world properties including gamma, lambda, and sigma had lower values in the MCI and AD groups than the CN group. AD patients had reduced degree, clustering coefficient, and path length than the CN and MCI groups. We observed significant associations of cognitive ability with degree in the CN group, with gamma and sigma in the MCI group, and with degree, connectivity density, clustering coefficient, and path length in the AD group. There were significant correlation patterns between sigma values and cortical gray matter volume in the CN, MCI, and AD groups.Conclusion These findings suggest the individual variability of gray matter network metrics may be valuable to track concurrent cognitive decline and cortical atrophy during AD progression. This may contribute to a better understanding of cognitive decline and brain morphological alterations related to AD.