Fig. 2

Regions of interest within the mesocorticolimbic pathway showing significant decreases in pre-synaptic dopaminergic activity in AD. A Violin plots represent the distribution of SBR in ROIs with significantly decreased DAT density (p < 0.05, Bonferroni-corrected for multiple comparisons). Asterisks denote post hoc comparisons, Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons, at p < 0.05 (*), p < 0.01 (**), and p < 0.001 (***). Brain renderings were obtained from the BrainNet Viewer toolbox [35]. B Brain renderings showing the distribution of voxel-wise differences in [123I]FP-CIT BPs in each clinical group, resulting from statistical comparison with HC. The magnitude of the difference is reported by means of Cohen’s d effect size. Only ROIs showing significantly decreased [123I]FP-CIT BP in association with Alzheimer’s disease are shown. Abbreviations: AD-D, Alzheimer’s disease dementia; AD-MCI, mild cognitive impairment due to Alzheimer’s disease; HC, healthy controls