Bentham, C., De Marco, M. and Venneri, A. (2019) The modulatory effect of cerebrovascular burden in response to cognitive stimulation in healthy ageing and mild cognitive impairment. Neural Plasticity, 2019. ISSN 2090-5904
Abstract
Background. Cerebrovascular burden is a common pathology in mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer’s disease (AD), with an additive impact on cognitive functioning. Despite being proposed as a potential moderator of cholinesterase inhibiting drug therapy, there is a paucity of evidence investigating the impact of cerebrovascular pathology on responsiveness to cognitive interventions.
Method. The current study uses neuropsychological, neurostructural, and functional connectivity indices to characterise response to a cognitive stimulation paradigm in 25 healthy ageing and 22 MCI participants, to examine the hypothesised detrimental effects of concurrent vascular pathology.
Results. In both healthy ageing and MCI, increased levels of vascular pathology limited the potential for a neuroplastic response to cognitive stimulation. In healthy ageing, participants with lower levels of vascular burden had greater functional connectivity response in the target posterior default mode network. Those with low levels of vascular pathology in the MCI cohort had increased functional connectivity of the right insula and claustrum within the salience network. Burden did not, however, predict cognitive or neuroanatomical changes.
Conclusions. The current research evidences the modulatory effect of cerebrovascular pathology in interventions aimed at re-establishing network connectivity to prevent cognitive deterioration and delay the transition to the dementia stage of AD. Examination of co-occurring vascular pathology may improve precision in targeting treatment to MCI candidates who may respond optimally to such cognitive interventions.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2019 The Authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Sheffield Teaching Hospitals |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 27 Aug 2019 11:30 |
Last Modified: | 27 Aug 2019 11:30 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Hindawi Limited |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1155/2019/2305318 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:150095 |