Novel methodology for detection and prediction of mild cognitive impairment using resting-state EEG

Background: Early discrimination and prediction of cognitive decline are crucial for the study of neurodegenerative mechanisms and interventions to promote cognitive resiliency.

Methods: Our research is based on resting-state electroencephalography (EEG) and the current dataset includes 137 consensus-diagnosed, community-dwelling Black Americans (ages 60-90 years, 84 healthy controls [HC]; 53 mild cognitive impairment [MCI]) recruited through Wayne State University and Michigan Alzheimer's Disease Research Center. We conducted multiscale analysis on time-varying brain functional connectivity and developed an innovative soft discrimination model in which each decision on HC or MCI also comes with a connectivity-based score.

Results: The leave-one-out cross-validation accuracy is 91.97% and 3-fold accuracy is 91.17%. The 9 to 18 months' progression trend prediction accuracy over an availability-limited subset sample is 84.61%.

Conclusion: The EEG-based soft discrimination model demonstrates high sensitivity and reliability for MCI detection and shows promising capability in proactive prediction of people at risk of MCI before clinical symptoms may occur.