Spatiotemporal oscillatory patterns during working memory maintenance in mild cognitive impairment and subjective cognitive decline

Abstract

Working memory (WM) is a crucial cognitive process and its disruption is among the earliest symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease. While alterations of the neuronal processes underlying WM have been evidenced in mild cognitive impairment (MCI), scarce literature is available in subjective cognitive decline (SCD). We used magnetoencephalography during a WM task performed by MCI (n=45), SCD (n=49) and healthy elders (n=49) to examine group differences during the maintenance period (0–4000ms). Data were analyzed using time–frequency analysis and significant oscillatory differences were localized at the source level. Our results indicated significant differences between groups, mainly during the early maintenance (250–1250ms) in the theta, alpha and beta bands and in the late maintenance (2750–3750ms) in the theta band. MCI showed lower local synchronization in fronto-temporal cortical regions in the early theta–alpha window relative to controls (p=2×10−03) and SCD (p=4×10−03), and in the late theta window relative to controls (p=1×1003) and SCD (p=0.01). Early theta–alpha power was significantly correlated with memory scores (rho=0.24,p=0.02) and late theta power was correlated with task performance (rho=0.24,p=0.03) and functional activity scores (rho=−0.23,p=0.02). In the early beta window, MCI showed reduced power in temporo-posterior regions relative to controls (p=3×10−03) and SCD (p=0.02). Our results may suggest that these alterations would reflect that memory-related networks are damaged.