Modeling the Relationships Between Functional Connectivity and Amyloid Deposition in Alzheimer's Disease

Inclusion Criteria:

• All the participants must meet the following criteria:

  1. Age between 55-80 years.
  2. Patients population: Diagnosed as prodromal AD or mild AD dementia based on IWG-2 criteria.
  3. Normal control population: Cognitive unimpaired individual is defined as normal control in this study. Cognitive un-impaired normal control is defined as cognitive performance in the non-impaired range for that individual, defined as not mild cognitive impairment or demented. The normal control should have their clinical dementia rating score 0 AND Cognitive Ability Screening Instrument (CASI) scores rated >50 percentile.
  4. Able to provide written informed consent with reliable caregiver in AD population. The participant should have reading ability OR 6/more years of formal education OR with working experiences.

Exclusion Criteria:

• All participants must not meet the following criteria:

  1. Already receive outpatient clinic follow-ups with diseases that may affect the cognitive evaluation or presentation that include but not limited to Parkinsonism, Parkinson's disease dementia, epilepsy, schizophrenia, major depression, major psychiatric disorders, alcohol or drug abuse, major head trauma with consciousness loss.
  2. Severe progressive or unstable systemic disease that may interfere with the follow-up and test results. These included but not limited to cancer in the past 5 years, end stage renal or liver dysfunction, clinically significant myocardial infarction (New York Heart Association Functional Classification III-IV), Active disease that received admission in the past one year and unstable angina. Other diseases that were not listed but may interfere with the follow-up or test will be judged by the principle investigator.
  3. Any treatment that suggests any of the aforementioned disease will be excluded.
  4. Depression with ongoing diagnosis and treatment, suicide idea or suicide behavior in the past 6 months.
  5. Contraindications or previously failure for receiving brain magnetic resonance imaging or PET scan.
  6. Pregnant, lactating or breastfeeding.
  7. Patients with severe liver disease (such as ALT > 3x upper limit of normal).