Cited by 37Dementia and Cognitive Impairment ResearchFunctional Brain Connectivity StudiesNeural and Behavioral Psychology Studies

Altered frontal and insular functional connectivity as pivotal mechanisms for apathy in Alzheimer's disease

Open access
Jones, Sarah A., De Marco, Matteo, Manca, Riccardo, Bell, Simon M., Blackburn, Daniel J., Wilkinson, Iain D., Soininen, Hilkka, Venneri, Annalena·2019·Cortex

Abstract

Background Apathy is a common and early symptom in Alzheimer's disease (AD) and is linked to poorer prognosis. Theoretical interpretations of apathy implicate alterations of connections amongst fronto-striatal and limbic regions.Objective To test the association between presence of apathy and patterns of brain functional connectivity in patients with clinically-established AD.Methods Seventy AD patients were included. Thirty-five patients experienced apathy as defined by the screening question of the Neuropsychiatric Inventory, and thirty-five did not. All patients agreed to undergo an MRI protocol inclusive of resting-state acquisitions. The hemodynamic-dependent signal was extracted bilaterally from five regions of interest: ventromedial prefrontal cortices, anterior cingulate cortices, dorsolateral prefrontal cortices, insulae and amygdalae. t tests were run to compare connectivity maps of apathetic and non-apathetic patients. Age, education, Mini Mental State Examination score, gray matter volumes and gray matter fractions served as covariates.Results At a p FWE < .05 threshold, apathetic patients had reduced connectivity between the left insula and right superior parietal cortex. Apathetic patients had also increased connectivity between the right dorsolateral prefrontal seed and the right superior parietal cortex. Patients with apathy were significantly more likely to experience other psychiatric symptoms.Conclusion Our findings support a role of frontal and insular connections in coordinating value-based decisions in AD. Both down-regulation and maladaptive up-regulation mechanisms appear to be at play in these regions.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1016/j.cortex.2019.04.008

Cites

58 of 58 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Jones, S. A., De Marco, M., Manca, R., Bell, S. M., Blackburn, D. J., Wilkinson, I. D., Soininen, H., & Venneri, A.
Affiliations
  • Sheffield Health and Social Care NHS Foundation Trust (GB)
  • University of Sheffield (GB)
  • University of Eastern Finland (FI)
Corresponding author
Venneri, Annalena
Venue
Cortex
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2019-10
Volume
119
Pages
100-110
ISSN
0010-9452 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2940140866
Cited by
37
References
57
Citations by year
2026: 1 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 9 · 2021: 5 · 2020: 6 · 2019: 1
FWCI
4.17
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Cortex (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • White Rose Research Online (University of Leeds, The University of Sheffield, University of York) (acceptedVersion)
  • UEF eRepo (University of Eastern Finland) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
Funders
European Commission
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Dementia and Cognitive Impairment Research
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Functional Brain Connectivity Studies
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
Keywords
apathy, Alzheimer's disease, functional connectivity, insula, frontal cortex, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, superior parietal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, amygdala, neuropsychiatric symptoms, value-based decision making, resting-state fMRI
MeSH terms
Alzheimer Disease, Brain, Brain Mapping, Cerebral Cortex, Female, Humans, Image Processing, Computer-Assisted, Male, Neural Pathways, Apathy

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review