Dynamic functional connectivity is modulated by the amount of p-Tau231 in blood in cognitively intact participants.

INTRODUCTION

Electrophysiology and plasma biomarkers are early and non-invasive candidates for Alzheimer's disease detection. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate changes in dynamic functional connectivity measured with magnetoencephalography, associated with the plasma pathology marker p-tau231 in unimpaired adults.

METHODS

73 individuals were included. Static and dynamic functional connectivity were calculated using leakage corrected amplitude envelope correlation. Each source's strength entropy across trials was calculated. A data-driven statistical analysis was performed to find the association between functional connectivity and plasma p-tau231 levels. Regression models were used to assess the influence of other variables over the clusters' connectivity.

RESULTS

Frontotemporal dynamic connectivity positively associated with p-tau231 levels. Linear regression models identified pathological, functional and structural factors that influence dynamic functional connectivity.

CONCLUSIONS

Changes associated to AD pathology can be observed very early on using dFC, which might be more sensitive to subtle alterations than sFC. Furthermore, this early increase in dFC appears to have a pathological nature given its relationship with other plasma, functional and structural measures.

SIGNIFICANCE: These results expand previous literature on dynamic functional connectivity in healthy individuals at risk of AD, highlighting its usefulness as an early, non-invasive and more sensitive biomarker.