PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Luis R. Peraza
AU  - Ruth Cromarty
AU  - Xenia Kobeleva
AU  - Michael J. Firbank
AU  - Alison Killen
AU  - Sara Graziadio
AU  - Alan J. Thomas
AU  - John T. O’Brien
AU  - John-Paul Taylor
TI  - Evidence of compensation in the brain networks of Lewy body dementia and Alzheimer’s disease patients
AID  - 10.1101/159491
DP  - 2017 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 159491
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/07/04/159491.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/07/04/159491.full
AB  - Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) and Alzheimer’s disease (AD) require differential management despite presenting with symptomatic overlap. A human electrophysiological difference is a decrease of dominant frequency (DF) −the highest power frequency between 4-15Hz– in DLB; a characteristic of Parkinsonian diseases. We analysed electroencephalographic (EEG) recordings from old adults: healthy controls (HCs), AD, DLB and Parkinson’s disease dementia (PDD) patients. Brain networks were assessed with the minimum spanning tree (MST) within six EEG bands: delta, theta, high-theta, alpha, beta and DF. Patients showed lower alpha band connectivity and lower DF than HCs. Lewy body dementias showed a randomised MST compared with HCs and AD in high-theta and alpha but not within the DF. The MST randomisation in DLB and PDD reflects decreased brain efficiency as well as impaired neural synchronisation. However, the lack of network topology differences at the DF indicates a compensatory response of the brain to the neuropathology.