Browsing by Author "Cruzat, J."

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Alzheimer's Imaging Consortium
(2025) Gonzalez-Gomez, R.; Hernandez, H.; Migeot, J.; Cruzat, J.; Legaz, A.; Fittipaldi, S.; Ibáñez, A.
BACKGROUND: While education is crucial for brain health, evidence mainly relies on individual measures of years of education (YoE), neglecting educational quality (EQ). Whether YoE and EQ have complementary impacts on aging and dementia is unknown. METHODS: We assessed the impact of EQ and YoE on brain health in 7,533 subjects from 20 countries, including healthy controls (HCs), Alzheimer's disease (AD), and frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD). EQ was based on country-level quality indicators. After applying neuroimage harmonization, we examined their effect on gray matter volume and functional connectivity. Regression models were adjusted for age, sex, and cognition, controlling for multiple comparisons. The impact of image quality was controlled through sensitivity analysis. RESULTS: Less EQ and YoE were associated with greater brain burden across groups. However, EQ had a stronger impact, mainly targeting the vulnerable areas of each condition. At the whole-brain level, EQ influenced atrophy (HCs: ∆mean = 2.0 [1.9-2.0] CL95 × 10⁻², p < 10⁻⁵; AD: ∆mean = 0.1 [-0.0-0.3] CL95 × 10⁻², p = 0.18; FTLD: ∆mean = 3.5 [3.0-4.0] CL95 × 10⁻², p < 10⁻⁵) and networks (HCs: ∆mean = 13.5 [13.2-13.7] CL95 × 10⁻², p < 10⁻⁵; AD: ∆mean = 5.9 [5.2-6.7] CL95 × 10⁻², p < 10⁻⁵; FTLD: ∆mean = 13.2 [11.2-13.7] CL95 × 10⁻², p < 10⁻⁵), 1.3 to 7.0 times more than YoE. CONCLUSION: Results support the need to incorporate education quality to study and improve brain health, underscoring the importance of country-level measures. © 2025 The Alzheimer's Association. Alzheimer's & Dementia published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Alzheimer's Association.
Public Health
(2025) Gonzalez-Gomez, R.; Hernandez, H.; Migeot, J.; Cruzat, J.; Legaz, A.; Fittipaldi, S.; Ibáñez, A.
BACKGROUND: While education is crucial for brain health, evidence mainly relies on individual measures of years of education (YoE), neglecting educational quality (EQ). Whether YoE and EQ have complementary impacts on aging and dementia is unknown. METHODS: We assessed the impact of EQ and YoE on brain health in 7,533 subjects from 20 countries, including healthy controls (HCs), Alzheimer's disease (AD), and frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD). EQ was based on country-level quality indicators. After applying neuroimage harmonization, we examined their effect on gray matter volume and functional connectivity. Regression models were adjusted for age, sex, and cognition, controlling for multiple comparisons. The impact of image quality was controlled through sensitivity analysis. RESULTS: Less EQ and YoE were associated with greater brain burden across groups. However, EQ had a stronger impact, mainly targeting the vulnerable areas of each condition. At the whole-brain level, EQ influenced atrophy (HCs: ∆mean = 2.0 [1.9-2.0] CL95 × 10-2, p < 10-5; AD: ∆mean = 0.1 [-0.0-0.3] CL95 × 10-2, p = 0.18; FTLD: ∆mean = 3.5 [3.0-4.0] CL95 × 10-2, p < 10-5) and networks (HCs: ∆mean = 13.5 [13.2-13.7] CL95 × 10-2, p < 10-5; AD: ∆mean = 5.9 [5.2-6.7] CL95 × 10-2, p < 10-5; FTLD: ∆mean = 13.2 [11.2-13.7] CL95 × 10-2, p < 10-5), 1.3 to 7.0 times more than YoE. CONCLUSION: Results support the need to incorporate education quality to study and improve brain health, underscoring the importance of country-level measures. © 2025 The Alzheimer's Association. Alzheimer's & Dementia published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Alzheimer's Association.
Citation - Scopus: 10
Viscous Dynamics Associated With Hypoexcitation and Structural Disintegration in Neurodegeneration Via Generative Whole-Brain Modeling
(John Wiley and Sons Inc, 2024) Coronel-Oliveros, C.; Gómez, R.G.; Ranasinghe, K.; Sainz-Ballesteros, A.; Legaz, A.; Fittipaldi, S.; Cruzat, J.; Yener, Görsev
INTRODUCTION: Alzheimer's disease (AD) and behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) lack mechanistic biophysical modeling in diverse, underrepresented populations. Electroencephalography (EEG) is a high temporal resolution, cost-effective technique for studying dementia globally, but lacks mechanistic models and produces non-replicable results. METHODS: We developed a generative whole-brain model that combines EEG source-level metaconnectivity, anatomical priors, and a perturbational approach. This model was applied to Global South participants (AD, bvFTD, and healthy controls). RESULTS: Metaconnectivity outperformed pairwise connectivity and revealed more viscous dynamics in patients, with altered metaconnectivity patterns associated with multimodal disease presentation. The biophysical model showed that connectome disintegration and hypoexcitability triggered altered metaconnectivity dynamics and identified critical regions for brain stimulation. We replicated the main results in a second subset of participants for validation with unharmonized, heterogeneous recording settings. DISCUSSION: The results provide a novel agenda for developing mechanistic model-inspired characterization and therapies in clinical, translational, and computational neuroscience settings. © 2024 The Authors. Alzheimer's & Dementia published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Alzheimer's Association.