Abnormal degree centrality in end-stage renal disease (ESRD) patients with cognitive impairment: a resting-state functional MRI study

To investigate functional connectivity (FC) changes in end-stage renal disease (ESRD) patients with and without cognitive impairment (CI) by using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI). Twenty-three ESRD patients with CI, 22 ESRD patients with non-CI (NCI) and 23 matched healthy controls (HC) were included. Rs-fMRI scans were performed in all subjects. Full-range, long-range, and short-range FC defined voxel-wise based degree centrality (DC) and seed based FC were computed and contrasted among the groups. Compared with HC, the DC value of short functional connectivity (SFC), in ESRD patients have increased on the left supramarginal gyrus, while it reduced on the left insula and right postcentral gyrus in CI and decreased on the right precentral gyrus in NCI. Compared with NCI, the DC value of LFC in CI increased on the left fusiform gyrus, while the DC value of short functional connectivity (SFC) increased on the left middle orbital gyrus. In the seed-based FC analyses, the CI showed significantly decreased FC between the left insula and bilateral middle temporal gyrus, between the left fusiform gyrus and the right hippocampus, and between the left postcentral gyrus and the right parahippocampus compared to HC; the CI showed significantly increased FC between the left precuneus and the left fusiform gyrus, between the left postcentral gyrus and the right precuneus compared with NCI. Positive correlations were found between DC values on the right superior frontal gyrus and LDL and BDST, and between MoCA and the DC values on the left insula and the left postcentral gyrus. The altered degree centrality may serve as early biomarkers for CI in ESRD patients.