Person: Fernández Lucas, Alberto Amable
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First Name
Alberto Amable
Last Name
Fernández Lucas
Affiliation
Universidad Complutense de Madrid
Faculty / Institute
Medicina
Department
Medicina Legal, Psiquiatría y Patología
Area
Psiquiatría
Identifiers
4 results
Search Results
Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
- PublicationSex Differences in the Complexity of Healthy Older Adults’ Magnetoencephalograms(MDPI, 2019-08-15) Shumbayawonda, Elizabeth; Abásolo, Daniel; López Sanz, David; Bruña Fernández, Ricardo; Maestú Unturbe, Fernando; Fernández Lucas, Alberto AmableThe analysis of resting-state brain activity recording in magnetoencephalograms (MEGs) with new algorithms of symbolic dynamics analysis could help obtain a deeper insight into the functioning of the brain and identify potential differences between males and females. Permutation Lempel-Ziv complexity (PLZC), a recently introduced non-linear signal processing algorithm based on symbolic dynamics, was used to evaluate the complexity of MEG signals in source space. PLZC was estimated in a broad band of frequencies (2–45 Hz), as well as in narrow bands (i.e., theta (4–8 Hz), alpha (8–12 Hz), low beta (12–20 Hz), high beta (20–30 Hz), and gamma (30–45 Hz)) in a sample of 98 healthy elderly subjects (49 males, 49 female) aged 65–80 (average age of 72.71 ± 4.22 for males and 72.67 ± 4.21 for females). PLZC was significantly higher for females than males in the high beta band at posterior brain regions including the precuneus, and the parietal and occipital cortices. Further statistical analyses showed that higher complexity values over highly overlapping regions than the ones mentioned above were associated with larger hippocampal volumes only in females. These results suggest that sex differences in healthy aging can be identified from the analysis of magnetoencephalograms with novel signal processing methods.
- PublicationApolipoprotein E ɛ4–related effects on cognition are limited to the Alzheimer’s disease spectrum(Springer Nature, 2022) Fernández Lucas, Alberto Amable; Vaquero Zamora, Lucía; Bajo Bretón, Ricardo; Zuluaga Arias, PilarWhether the deleterious efects of APOE4 are restricted to the Alzheimer’s disease (AD) spectrum or cause cognitive impairment irrespectively of the development of AD is still a matter of debate, and the focus of this study. Our analyses included APOE4 genotype, neuropsychological variables, amyloid-βeta (Aβ) and Tau markers, FDG-PET values, and hippocampal volumetry data derived from the healthy controls sample of the ADNI database. We formed 4 groups of equal size (n=30) based on APOE4 carriage and amyloid-PET status. Baseline and followup (i.e., 48 months post-baseline) results indicated that Aβ-positivity was the most important factor to explain poorer cognitive performance, while APOE4 only exerted a signifcant efect in Aβ-positive subjects. Additionally, multiple regression analyses evidenced that, within the Aβ-positive sample, hippocampal volumetry explained most of the variability in cognitive performance for APOE4 carriers. These fndings represent a strong support for the so-called preclinical/prodromal hypothesis, which states that the reported diferences in cognitive performance between healthy carriers and non-carriers are mainly due to the APOE4’s capability to increase the risk of AD. Moreover, our results reinforce the notion that a synergistic interaction of Aβ and APOE4 elicits a neurodegenerative process in the hippocampus that might be the main cause of impaired cognitive performance.
- PublicationComplexity Changes in Brain Activity in Healthy Ageing: A Permutation Lempel-Ziv Complexity Study of Magnetoencephalograms(MDPI, 2018-07-03) Shumbayawonda, Elizabeth; Tosun, Pinar; Fernández Lucas, Alberto Amable; Hughes, Michael; Abásolo, DanielMaturation and ageing, which can be characterised by the dynamic changes in brain morphology, can have an impact on the physiology of the brain. As such, it is possible that these changes can have an impact on the magnetic activity of the brain recorded using magnetoencephalography. In this study changes in the resting state brain (magnetic) activity due to healthy ageing were investigated by estimating the complexity of magnetoencephalogram (MEG) signals. The main aim of this study was to identify if the complexity of background MEG signals changed significantly across the human lifespan for both males and females. A sample of 177 healthy participants (79 males and 98 females aged between 21 and 80 and grouped into 3 categories i.e., early-, mid- and late-adulthood) was used in this investigation. This investigation also extended to evaluating if complexity values remained relatively stable during the 5 min recording. Complexity was estimated using permutation Lempel-Ziv complexity, a recently introduced complexity metric, with a motif length of 5 and a lag of 1. Effects of age and gender were investigated in the MEG channels over 5 brain regions, i.e., anterior, central, left lateral, posterior, and, right lateral, with highest complexity values observed in the signals recorded by the channels over the anterior and central regions of the brain. Results showed that while changes due to age had a significant effect on the complexity of the MEG signals recorded over 5 brain regions, gender did not have a significant effect on complexity values in all age groups investigated. Moreover, although some changes in complexity were observed between the different minutes of recording, due to the small magnitude of the changes it was concluded that practical significance might outweigh statistical significance in this instance. The results from this study can contribute to form a fingerprint of the characteristics of healthy ageing in MEGs that could be useful when investigating changes to the resting state activity due to pathology.
- PublicationPermutation Entropy for the Characterisation of Brain Activity Recorded with Magnetoencephalograms in Healthy Ageing(MDPI, 2017-03-25) Shumbayawonda, Elizabeth; Fernández Lucas, Alberto Amable; Hughes, Michael; Abásolo, DanielThe characterisation of healthy ageing of the brain could help create a fingerprint of normal ageing that might assist in the early diagnosis of neurodegenerative conditions. This study examined changes in resting state magnetoencephalogram (MEG) permutation entropy due to age and gender in a sample of 220 healthy participants (98 males and 122 females, ages ranging between 7 and 84). Entropy was quantified using normalised permutation entropy and modified permutation entropy, with an embedding dimension of 5 and a lag of 1 as the input parameters for both algorithms. Effects of age were observed over the five regions of the brain, i.e., anterior, central, posterior, and left and right lateral, with the anterior and central regions containing the highest permutation entropy. Statistically significant differences due to age were observed in the different brain regions for both genders, with the evolutions described using the fitting of polynomial regressions. Nevertheless, no significant differences between the genders were observed across all ages. These results suggest that the evolution of entropy in the background brain activity, quantified with permutation entropy algorithms, might be considered an alternative illustration of a ‘nominal’ physiological rhythm.