A Dietary Treatment Improves Cerebral Blood Flow and Brain Connectivity in Aging apoE4 Mice

Figure 5

Resting-state functional connectivity (FC) based on total correlation analyses of 15 regions of interest (ROIs) in the mouse brain. Total correlation matrices of wild-type and apoE4 at 12 and 18 months of age, both on Fortasyn and control diets. At 12 months of age, multivariate ANOVA (MANOVA) revealed some significant genotype but no diet effects in apoE4 compared to wild-type mice. More specifically, apoE4 mice showed reduced FC between the right auditory cortex and the left dorsal hippocampus () and also between the left visual cortex and the right auditory cortex (). At 18 months of age, apoE4 mice had significant lower FC between cortical and hippocampal regions but also between cortical regions themselves. Notably, Fortasyn was able to increase the hippocampal FC and also FC between the visual and retrosplenial cortices to the hippocampus.