Schedule of Events | Symposia

Functional connectivity changes associated with depression in dementia with Lewy bodies

Poster Session D - Monday, March 31, 2025, 8:00 – 10:00 am EDT, Back Bay Ballroom/Republic Ballroom

Manon Querry¹ (m.querry@unistra.fr), Anne Botzung², Marion Sourty¹, Elena Chabran¹, Léa Sanna², Paulo Loureiro de Sousa¹, Benjamin Cretin², Catherine Demuynck², Candice Muller², Alix Ravier², Benoît Schorr², Nathalie Philippi², Frédéric Blanc¹; ¹Icube Laboratory (CNRS, UMR 7357), IMIS team, ²University Hospitals of Strasbourg, Research and Resources Memory Center

Depression is frequent in the early stages of dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB), and more than half of DLB patients would have a history of depression. Our study sought to investigate the functional connectivity (FC) changes associated with depression in prodromal to mild DLB patients compared with controls. MRI data were collected from 66 DLB patients and 18 controls. Depression was evaluated with the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview. Resting-state FC (rsFC) was investigated with the CONN toolbox using a ROI-to-ROI approach and both regression and comparison analyses. Correlations were found between the depression scores and the rsFC between fronto-temporal and primary visual areas in DLB patients (p < 0.05, FDR corrected). Depressed DLB patients also showed decreased rsFC within the salience network (SN), increased rsFC between the default mode network (DMN) and the language network (LN) and decreased rsFC between the cerebellar network (CN) and the fronto-parietal network (FPN) compared to non-depressed DLB patients (p < 0.05, uncorrected). Comparison analyses between treated and non-treated DLB patients highlighted FC changes in treated patients involving the SN, the DMN, the FPN and the dorsal attentional network (p < 0.05, uncorrected). Our findings highlighted specific FC changes associated with depressive symptoms in DLB. The SN would especially be a key network for understanding the link between DLB and depression. Furthermore, the rsFC alterations we identified in dDLB patients could contribute to emotional symptoms and cognitive bias related to depression. However, antidepressants might be able to act on brain networks and improve depressive symptomatology.

Topic Area: METHODS: Neuroimaging