Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is essential for developing encoding models that identify functional changes in language-related brain areas of individuals with Neurocognitive Disorders (NCD). While large language model (LLM)-based fMRI encoding has shown promise, existing studies predominantly focus on healthy, young adults, overlooking older NCD populations and cognitive level correlations. This paper explores language-related functional changes in older NCD adults using LLM-based fMRI encoding and brain scores, addressing current limitations. We analyze the correlation between brain scores and cognitive scores at both whole-brain and language-related ROI levels. Our findings reveal that higher cognitive abilities correspond to better brain scores, with correlations peaking in the middle temporal gyrus. This study highlights the potential of fMRI encoding models and brain scores for detecting early functional changes in NCD patients.

翻译：功能磁共振成像（fMRI）对于构建编码模型以识别神经认知障碍（NCD）患者语言相关脑区功能变化至关重要。尽管基于大语言模型（LLM）的fMRI编码方法已展现出潜力，但现有研究主要聚焦于健康的年轻成年人，忽视了老年NCD人群及其认知水平相关性。本文利用基于LLM的fMRI编码与脑区评分，探究老年NCD患者的语言相关功能变化，以弥补当前研究的不足。我们在全脑层面及语言相关感兴趣区域（ROI）层面分析了脑区评分与认知评分的相关性。研究结果表明，较高的认知能力对应较好的脑区评分，且相关性在颞中回达到峰值。本研究揭示了fMRI编码模型与脑区评分在检测NCD患者早期功能变化方面的潜力。