Aberrant Spontaneous Brain Activity in Coronary Heart Disease Using Fractional Amplitude of Low-Frequency Fluctuations: A Preliminary Resting-State Functional MRI Study

OBJECTIVE: This study is aimed at exploring the spontaneous brain activity changes by measuring the fractional amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations (fALFF) and their relationship with clinical characteristics in patients with coronary heart disease (CHD). METHODS: Coronary heart disease patients (n = 25) and age, gender, and education level-matched control subjects (controls, n = 35) were included. The grey matter volume (GMV) and fALFF values were calculated to assess the difference in brain structure and function between the two groups, respectively. Correlation analyses between the fALFF values and clinical characteristics were further assessed in CHD patients. In addition, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were conducted to access the diagnostic ability of the fALFF method. RESULTS: There was no significant difference in GMV between the CHD and control groups. Compared with the control group, patients with CHD showed significantly decreased fALFF in the left precentral/postcentral gyrus and increased fALFF in the right inferior cerebellum. Patients with a history of myocardial infarction (MI) showed significantly decreased fALFF values of the right inferior cerebellum than patients without MI. There was no significant correlation between the fALFF values in specific brain regions and disease duration. Furthermore, the ROC curves of abnormal brain regions showed the perfect accuracy of the fALFF value in distinguishing between CHD patients and controls. CONCLUSION: CHD demonstrated aberrant neural activity in specific brain regions mainly related to sensorimotor networks and pain processing, which may contribute to understanding the underlying neurological mechanism of CHD.