Stimulus-induced gamma rhythms are weaker in human elderly with Mild Cognitive Impairment and Alzheimer's Disease

  1. Dinavahi VPS Murty
  2. Keerthana Manikandan
  3. Wupadrasta Santosh Kumar
  4. Ranjini Garani Ramesh
  5. Simran Purokayastha
  6. Bhargavi Nagendra
  7. Abhishek M. L.
  8. Aditi Balakrishnan
  9. Mahendra Javali
  10. Naren Prahalada Rao
  11. Supratim Ray  Is a corresponding author
  1. Indian Institute of Science, India
  2. MS Ramaiah Medical College & Memorial Hospital, India
  3. National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, India

Abstract

Alzheimer's Disease (AD) in elderly adds substantially to socio-economic burden necessitating early diagnosis. While recent studies in rodent models of AD have suggested diagnostic and therapeutic value for gamma rhythms in brain, the same has not been rigorously tested in humans. In this case-control study, we recruited a large population (N=244; 106 females) of elderly (>49 years) subjects from the community, who viewed large gratings that induced strong gamma oscillations in their electroencephalogram (EEG). These subjects were classified as healthy (N=227), mild-cognitively-impaired (MCI; N=12) or AD (N=5) based on clinical history and Clinical Dementia Rating scores. Surprisingly, stimulus-induced gamma rhythms, but not alpha or steady-state visually evoked responses, were significantly lower in MCI/AD subjects compared to their age and gender matched controls. This reduction was not due to differences in eye-movements or baseline power. Our results suggest that gamma could be used as potential screening tool for MCI/AD in humans.

Data availability

All spectral analyses were performed using Chronux toolbox (version 2.10), available at http://chronux.org. Relevant data and codes are available at the following GitHub repository: https://github.com/supratimray/TLSAEEGProjectPrograms.

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Dinavahi VPS Murty

    Centre for Neuroscience, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, India
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  2. Keerthana Manikandan

    Centre for Neuroscience, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, India
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  3. Wupadrasta Santosh Kumar

    Centre for Neuroscience, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, India
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  4. Ranjini Garani Ramesh

    Centre for Neuroscience, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, India
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  5. Simran Purokayastha

    Centre for Neuroscience, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, India
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-6096-1477
  6. Bhargavi Nagendra

    Centre for Neuroscience, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, India
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  7. Abhishek M. L.

    Centre for Neuroscience, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, India
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  8. Aditi Balakrishnan

    Centre for Neuroscience, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, India
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  9. Mahendra Javali

    Department of Neurology, MS Ramaiah Medical College & Memorial Hospital, Bangalore, India
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  10. Naren Prahalada Rao

    Department of Psychiatry, National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bangalore, India
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  11. Supratim Ray

    Centre for Neuroscience, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, India
    For correspondence
    sray@iisc.ac.in
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-1968-1382

Funding

Tata Trusts

  • Naren Prahalada Rao
  • Supratim Ray

Wellcome Trust/DBT India Alliance (Intermediate fellowship 500145/Z/09/Z)

  • Supratim Ray

Wellcome Trust/DBT India Alliance (Senior fellowship IA/S/18/2/504003)

  • Supratim Ray

Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science and Technology, India (DBT-IISc Partnership Programme)

  • Supratim Ray

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Ethics

Human subjects: We obtained informed consent from all participants before the experiment. The Institute Human Ethics Committees of Indian Institute of Science (IHEC numbers: original: 22/2014, revised: 7-15092017), NIMHANS, and M S Ramaiah Hospital, Bangalore approved all procedures.

Copyright

© 2021, Murty et al.

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.

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  1. Dinavahi VPS Murty
  2. Keerthana Manikandan
  3. Wupadrasta Santosh Kumar
  4. Ranjini Garani Ramesh
  5. Simran Purokayastha
  6. Bhargavi Nagendra
  7. Abhishek M. L.
  8. Aditi Balakrishnan
  9. Mahendra Javali
  10. Naren Prahalada Rao
  11. Supratim Ray
(2021)
Stimulus-induced gamma rhythms are weaker in human elderly with Mild Cognitive Impairment and Alzheimer's Disease
eLife 10:e61666.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.61666

Share this article

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.61666

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