Longitudinal simultaneous fMRI and mesoscale calcium imaging in a mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease

Multimodal neuroimaging plays an active role in understanding clinically accessible biomarkers of health and disease. Using simultaneous mesoscopic calcium imaging and BOLD-fMRI, we examine spontaneous activity in a GCaMP-positive mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease (AD)—longitudinally—at 4, 6, and 9 months. We find that both imaging modalities show early wide-spread changes in connectivity in AD compared to controls, with diverging trends at 6months. Intriguingly, these neuroimaging changes precede typical behaviour deficits. Further, preliminary evidence of cross-modal uncoupling hints at a complex relationship between excitatory neural activity (calcium imaging data), and the BOLD signal that is affected by AD-related progression.