Analyzing Knowledge Retrieval Impairments Associated with Alzheimer’s Disease Using Network Analyses

Figure 3

Each of the factors we identified as distinguishing between PAD and NC (except median degree, correlation ) are plotted with respect to scores on the Mini-Mental State Exam (MMSE) (MMSE scores were unavailable for 7 participant visits out of 1,047). Blue dots indicate patients diagnosed with PAD and red dots indicate those diagnosed as NC. Clinicians had access to patient MMSE scores when making their diagnosis, but did not use semantic fluency data to make their diagnoses. All correlations are significant (, uncorrected for multiple comparisons). Many of these correlations appear to be driven by a restriction in range of the MMSE scores for NC patients. Only the first three factors in the top row (small-worldness, number of nodes, and density) are correlated significantly with MMSE (, uncorrected) when restricted to PAD patients.