Dataset Information

White matter alterations in early-stage Alzheimer's disease: A tract-specific study.

ABSTRACT:

Introduction

Diffusion magnetic resonance imaging may allow for microscopic characterization of white matter degeneration in early stages of Alzheimer's disease.

Methods

Multishell Diffusion magnetic resonance imaging data were acquired from 100 participants (40 cognitively normal, 38 with subjective cognitive decline, and 22 with mild cognitive impairment [MCI]). White matter microscopic degeneration in 27 major tracts of interest was assessed using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), neurite orientation dispersion and density imaging, and q-space imaging.

Results

Lower DTI fractional anisotropy and higher radial diffusivity were observed in the cingulum, thalamic radiation, and forceps major of participants with MCI. These tracts of interest also had the highest predictive power to discriminate groups. Diffusion metrics were associated with cognitive performance, particularly Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test immediate recall, with the highest association observed in participants with MCI.

Discussion

While DTI was the most sensitive, neurite orientation dispersion and density imaging and q-space imaging complementarily characterized reduced axonal density accompanied with dispersed and less restricted white matter microstructures.

SUBMITTER: Wen Q

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6713788 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Similar Datasets

Project description:Cortical and subcortical nuclei degenerate in the dementias, but less is known about changes in the white matter tracts that connect them. To better understand white matter changes in behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) and early-onset Alzheimer's disease (EOAD), we used a novel approach to extract full 3D profiles of fiber bundles from diffusion-weighted MRI (DWI) and map white matter abnormalities onto detailed models of each pathway. The result is a spatially complex picture of tract-by-tract microstructural changes. Our atlas of tracts for each disease consists of 21 anatomically clustered and recognizable white matter tracts generated from whole-brain tractography in 20 patients with bvFTD, 23 with age-matched EOAD, and 33 healthy elderly controls. To analyze the landscape of white matter abnormalities, we used a point-wise tract correspondence method along the 3D profiles of the tracts and quantified the pathway disruptions using common diffusion metrics - fractional anisotropy, mean, radial, and axial diffusivity. We tested the hypothesis that bvFTD and EOAD are associated with preferential degeneration in specific neural networks. We mapped axonal tract damage that was best detected with mean and radial diffusivity metrics, supporting our network hypothesis, highly statistically significant and more sensitive than widely studied fractional anisotropy reductions. From white matter diffusivity, we identified abnormalities in bvFTD in all 21 tracts of interest but especially in the bilateral uncinate fasciculus, frontal callosum, anterior thalamic radiations, cingulum bundles and left superior longitudinal fasciculus. This network of white matter alterations extends beyond the most commonly studied tracts, showing greater white matter abnormalities in bvFTD versus controls and EOAD patients. In EOAD, network alterations involved more posterior white matter - the parietal sector of the corpus callosum and parahipoccampal cingulum bilaterally. Widespread but distinctive white matter alterations are a key feature of the pathophysiology of these two forms of dementia.