Donepezil Treatment Stabilizes Functional Connectivity During Resting State and Brain Activity During Memory Encoding in Alzheimer's Disease

Previous studies with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) demonstrated a differential brain activity and connectivity after treatment with donepezil in Alzheimer's disease (AD) when compared to healthy elders. Importantly however, there are no available studies where the placebo or control group included comparable AD patients relative to the treated groups. Fifteen patients recently diagnosed of AD were randomized to treatment (n = 8) or to control group (n = 7); the former receiving daily treatment of donepezil during 3 months. At baseline and follow-up, both groups underwent resting-state as well as task-fMRI examinations, this latter assessing encoding of visual scenes. The treated group showed higher connectivity in areas of the default mode network, namely the right parahippocampal gyrus at follow-up resting-fMRI as compared to the control group. On the other hand, for the task-fMRI, the untreated AD group presented progressive increased activation in the left middle temporal gyrus and bilateral precuneus at the 3-month examination compared to baseline, whereas the treated group exhibited stable patterns of brain activity. Donepezil treatment is associated with stabilization of connectivity of medial temporal regions during resting state and of brain efficiency during a cognitive demand, on the whole reducing progressive dysfunctional reorganizations observed during the natural course of the disease.