Subjects

The experimental data of this study comes from the open database Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) (http://adni.loni.ucla.edu/). This database was established by a number of non-profit organizations in 2003, and provides comprehensive data including structural MRI data, functional MRI data and positron emission tomography data of Alzheimer's disease (AD), MCI and some healthy elderly. The patients' detailed basic information and clinical information are also provided in the database. This study used the functional MRI data of MCI patients and healthy elderly in this database. 71 subjects including 38 MCI patients and 33 HC were obtained. The subjects were excluded if the translation exceeded ±2.5 mm and rotation exceeded ±2.5. Finally, the remaining 70 subjects were involved in this study, including 38 MCI patients (age: 72.99 ± 7.79; 23 m/15 f) and 32 HC (age: 76.25 ± 6.51; 13 m/19 f).

There was no difference (P = 0.097) in gender between the two groups by chi-square test. We conducted two-sample t-tests on the age of MCI patients and HC, and found no difference (P = 0.64). Clinical diagnosis of MCI was confirmed with the mini mental state examination (MMSE) and the clinical dementia rating scale (CDR). The demographic information for MCI group and HC group is listed in Table ​Table11.

Demographic information table of all subjects.