Morphological changes in the fronto-limbic circuit are associated with the occurrence of neuropsychiatric symptoms in neurocognitive disorders

Introduction

This database includes the raw data linked with the paper “  Morphological changes in the fronto-limbic circuit are associated with the occurrence of neuropsychiatric symptoms in neurocognitive disorders . ” still pending .

Background:

Neuropsychiatric symptoms (NPSs) are a common and distressful aspect of dementia.  Knowledge of structural correlates of NPSs is limited, but the fronto-limbic circuit appears to play a crucial role. We aimed to identify associations of fronto-limbic circuit morphometry with specific NPSs in patients with various types of cognitive impairment.

Methods:

Of 84 participants, 27 were diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), 41 with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) dementia and 16 with non-AD dementia. In all patients we assessed regional brain morphometry using a region of interest (ROI)-based analysis. The mean cortical thickness (CT) of 20 cortical areas and the volume (V) of 4 subcortical areas of the fronto-limbic system were extracted. NPSs were rated by means of the Neuropsychiatric Inventory (NPI). We used multiple linear regression models adjusted for age and disease duration to identify significant associations between scores of NPI sub-domains and MRI measures of brain morphometry.

Results:

All significant associations found were negative (inverse), except those between irritability and the rostral middle frontal gyrus, the right pars opercularis and the left pars triangularis regions in MCI patients. Apathy showed more evident morphological associations in demented patients, with the involvement of the inferior frontal gyrus and the cingulate cortex. Depression and anxiety correlated in MCI patients with the left paracentral lobule and left rostral anterior cingulate, respectively. Hallucinations were not associated with any of the ROIs. Agitation and delusions showed associations exclusively in the AD group, with the frontal regions (superior, middle and inferior frontal gyri), the entorhinal cortex and the temporal pole. By contrast, euphoria, disinhibition and eating abnormalities were found to be significantly related, predominantly in the MCI group, to the entorhinal, para-hippocampal and fusiform cortices, the temporal pole, the caudal middle frontal gyrus and the amygdala, especially on the right-side.