diffusion tensor metrics as biomarkers in alzheimers disease扩散张量指标作为生物标志物在阿尔茨海默氏症.pdfVIP

Diffusion Tensor Metrics as Biomarkers in Alzheimer’s Disease 1 2 3 1 1,4 Julio Acosta-Cabronero *, Stephanie Alley , Guy B. Williams , George Pengas , Peter J. Nestor 1 Cognition, Memory and Language Group, Neurology Unit, Department of Clinical Neurosciences, School of Clinical Medicine, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom, 2 Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, Centre for Mathematical Sciences, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom, 3 Wolfson Brain Imaging Centre, Department of Clinical Neurosciences, School of Clinical Medicine, University of Cambridge, Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, United Kingdom, 4 German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE), Magdeburg, Germany Abstract Background: Although diffusion tensor imaging has been a major research focus for Alzheimer’s disease in recent years, it remains unclear whether it has sufficient stability to have biomarker potential. To date, frequently inconsistent results have been reported, though lack of standardisation in acquisition and analysis make such discrepancies difficult to interpret. There is also, at present, little knowledge of how the biometric properties of diffusion tensor imaging might evolve in the course of Alzheimer’s disease. Methods: The biomarker question was addressed in this study by adopting a standardised protocol both for the whole brain (tract-based spatial statistics), and for a region of interest: the midline corpus callosum. In order to study the evolution of tensor changes, cross-sectional data from very mild (N = 21) and mild (N = 22) Alzheimer’s disease patients were examined as well as a longitudinal cohort (N = 16) that had been rescanned at 12 months. Findings and Sign