Glucose-oxygen coupling can serve as a biomarker for neuroinflammation-related genetic variants.

The single-nucleotide polymorphism rs3197999 in the macrophage-stimulating protein 1 gene is a missense variant. Studies have indicated that macrophage-stimulating protein 1 mediates neuronal loss and synaptic plasticity damage, and overexpression of the macrophage-stimulating protein 1 gene leads to the excessive activation of microglial cells, thereby resulting in an elevation of cerebral glucose metabolism. Traditional diagnostic models may be disrupted by neuroinflammation, making it difficult to predict the pathological status of patients solely based on single-modal images. We hypothesize that the macrophage-stimulating protein 1 rs3197999 single-nucleotide polymorphism may lead to imbalances in glucose and oxygen metabolism, thereby influencing cognitive resilience and the progression of Alzheimer's disease. In this study, we found that among 121 patients with mild cognitive impairment, carriers of the macrophage-stimulating protein 1 rs3197999 risk allele showed a significant reduction in the coupling of glucose and oxygen metabolism in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex region. However, the rs3197999 variant did not induce significant differences in glucose metabolism and neuronal activity signals. Furthermore, the rs3197999 risk allele correlated with a higher rate of increase in clinical dementia score, mediated by the coupling of glucose and oxygen metabolism.

A novel sand cat swarm optimization algorithm-based SVM for diagnosis imaging genomics in Alzheimer's disease.

In recent years, brain imaging genomics has advanced significantly in revealing underlying pathological mechanisms of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and providing early diagnosis. In this paper, we present a framework for diagnosing AD that integrates magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) genetic preprocessing, feature selection, and a support vector machine (SVM) model. In particular, a novel sand cat swarm optimization (SCSO) algorithm, named SS-SCSO, which integrates the spiral search strategy and alert mechanism from the sparrow search algorithm, is proposed to optimize the SVM parameters. The optimization efficacy of the SS-SCSO algorithm is evaluated using CEC2017 benchmark functions, with results compared with other metaheuristic algorithms (MAs). The proposed SS-SCSO-SVM framework has been effectively employed to classify different stages of cognitive impairment in Alzheimer's Disease using imaging genetic datasets from the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative. It has demonstrated excellent classification accuracies for four typical cases, including AD, early mild cognitive impairment, late mild cognitive impairment, and healthy control. Furthermore, experiment results indicate that the SS-SCSO-SVM algorithm has a stronger exploration capability for diagnosing AD compared to other well-established MAs and machine learning techniques.

A hybrid multimodal machine learning model for Detecting Alzheimer's disease.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) diagnosis utilizing single modality neuroimaging data has limitations. Multimodal fusion of complementary biomarkers may improve diagnostic performance. This study proposes a multimodal machine learning framework integrating magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), positron emission tomography (PET) and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) assays for enhanced AD characterization. The model incorporates a hybrid algorithm combining enhanced Harris Hawks Optimization (HHO) algorithm referred to as ILHHO, with Kernel Extreme Learning Machine (KELM) classifier for simultaneous feature selection and classification. ILHHO enhances HHO's search efficiency by integrating iterative mapping (IM) to improve population diversity and local escaping operator (LEO) to balance exploration-exploitation. Comparative analysis with other improved HHO algorithms, classic meta-heuristic algorithms (MHAs), and state-of-the-art MHAs on IEEE CEC2014 benchmark functions indicates that ILHHO achieves superior optimization performance compared to other comparative algorithms. The synergistic ILHHO-KELM model is evaluated on 202 AD Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) subjects. Results demonstrate superior multimodal classification accuracy over single modalities, validating the importance of fusing heterogeneous biomarkers. MRI + PET + CSF achieves 99.2 % accuracy for AD vs. normal control (NC), outperforming conventional and proposed methods. Discriminative feature analysis provides further insights into differential AD-related neurodegeneration patterns detected by MRI and PET. The differential PET and MRI features demonstrate how the two modalities provide complementary biomarkers. The neuroanatomical relevance of selected features supports ILHHO-KELM's potential for extracting sensitive AD imaging signatures. Overall, the study showcases the advantages of capitalizing on complementary multimodal data through advanced feature learning techniques for improving AD diagnosis.

Novel Alzheimer's disease subtypes based on functional brain connectivity in human connectome project.

The pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease (AD) remains unclear, but revealing individual differences in functional connectivity (FC) may provide insights and improve diagnostic precision. A hierarchical clustering-based autoencoder with functional connectivity was proposed to categorize 82 AD patients from the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative. Compared to directly performing clustering, using an autoencoder to reduce the dimensionality of the matrix can effectively eliminate noise and redundant information in the data, extract key features, and optimize clustering performance. Subsequently, subtype differences in clinical and graph theoretical metrics were assessed. Results indicate a significant inter-subject heterogeneity in the degree of FC disruption among AD patients. We have identified two neurophysiological subtypes: subtype I exhibits widespread functional impairment across the entire brain, while subtype II shows mild impairment in the Limbic System region. What is worth noting is that we also observed significant differences between subtypes in terms of neurocognitive assessment scores associations with network functionality, and graph theory metrics. Our method can accurately identify different functional disruptions in subtypes of AD, facilitating personalized treatment and early diagnosis, ultimately improving patient outcomes.

Enhanced Harris hawks optimization-based fuzzy k-nearest neighbor algorithm for diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease.

In order to stop deterioration and give patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) early therapy, it is crucial to correctly diagnose AD and its early stage, mild cognitive impairment (MCI). A framework for diagnosing AD is presented in this paper, which includes magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) image preprocessing, feature extraction, and the Fuzzy k-nearest neighbor algorithm (FKNN) model. In particular, the framework's novelty lies in the use of an improved Harris Hawks Optimization (HHO) algorithm named SSFSHHO, which integrates the Sobol sequence and Stochastic Fractal Search (SFS) mechanisms for optimizing the parameters of FKNN. The HHO method improves the quality of the initial population overall by incorporating the Sobol sequence, and the SFS mechanism increases the algorithm's capacity to get out of the local optimum solution. Comparisons with other classical meta-heuristic algorithms, state-of-the-art HHO variants in low and high dimensions, and enhanced meta-heuristic algorithms on 30 typical IEEE CEC2014 benchmark test problems show that the overall performance of SSFSHHO is significantly better than other comparative algorithms. Moreover, the created framework based on the SSFSHHO-FKNN model is employed to classify AD and MCI using MRI scans from the ADNI dataset, achieving high classification performance for 6 representative cases. Experimental findings indicate that the proposed algorithm performs better than a number of high-performance optimization algorithms and classical machine learning algorithms, thus offering a promising approach for AD classification. Additionally, the proposed strategy can successfully identify relevant features and enhance classification performance for AD diagnosis.

A novel reconstruction method combining multi-detector SPECT with an elliptical orbit and computer tomography for cardiac imaging.

The myocardial single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) is a good study due to its clinical significance in the diagnosis of myocardial disease and the requirement for improving image quality. However, SPECT imaging faces challenges related to low spatial resolution and significant statistical noise, which concerns patient radiation safety. In this paper, a novel reconstruction system combining multi-detector elliptical SPECT (ME-SPECT) and computer tomography (CT) is proposed to enhance spatial resolution and sensitivity. The hybrid imaging system utilizes a slit-slat collimator and elliptical orbit to improve sensitivity and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), obtains accurate attenuation mapping matrices, and requires prior information from integrated CT. Collimator parameters are corrected based on CT reconstruction results. The SPECT imaging system employs an iterative reconstruction algorithm that utilizes prior knowledge. An iterative reconstruction algorithm based on prior knowledge is applied to the SPECT imaging system, and a method for prioritizing the reconstruction of regions of interest (ROI) is introduced to deal with severely truncated data from ME-SPECT. Simulation results show that the proposed method can significantly improve the system's spatial resolution, SNR, and image fidelity. The proposed method can effectively suppress distortion and artifacts with the higher spatial resolution ordered subsets expectation maximization (OSEM); slit-slat collimation.

Dissociation of energy connectivity and functional connectivity in Alzheimer's disease is associated with maintenance of cognitive performance.

The correlation between functional connectivity (FC) network segregation, glucose metabolism and cognitive decline has been recently identified. The coupling relationship between glucose metabolism and the intensity of neuronal activity obtained using hybrid PET/MRI techniques can provide additional information on the physiological state of the brain in patients with AD and mild cognitive impairment (MCI). It is a valuable task to use the above rules for constructing biomarkers that are closely related to the cognitive ability of individuals to monitor the pathological status of patients. This study proposed the concept of the energy connectivity (EC) network and its construction method. We hypothesized that the dissociation between energy connectivity and functional connectivity of brain regions is a valid indicator of cognitive ability in patients with dementia. The number of EC-attenuated brain regions (EC-AR) and the number of FC-attenuated brain regions (FC-AR) are obtained by comparison with the normal group, and the dissociation between functional connectivity and energy connectivity is indicated using the ratio of FC-AR to EC-AR for individuals in the disease group. The findings suggest that FC-AR/EC-AR values are accurate predictors of cognitive performance, while taking into account the cognitive recovery due to compensatory effects of the brain. The cognitive ability of some patients with cognitive recovery can also be predicted more accurately. This also indicates that lower functional connectivity and higher energy connectivity between network modules may be one of the important features that maintain cognitive performance. The concept of energy connectivity also has potential to help explore the pathological state of AD.

Characteristics and variability of structural networks derived from diffusion tensor imaging.

Structural brain networks were constructed based on diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) data of 59 young healthy male adults. The networks had 68 nodes, derived from FreeSurfer parcellation of the cortical surface. By means of streamline tractography, the edge weight was defined as the number of streamlines between two nodes normalized by their mean volume. Specifically, two weighting schemes were adopted by considering various biases from fiber tracking. The weighting schemes were tested for possible bias toward the physical size of the nodes. A novel thresholding method was proposed using the variance of number of streamlines in fiber tracking. The backbone networks were extracted and various network analyses were applied to investigate the features of the binary and weighted backbone networks. For weighted networks, a high correlation was observed between nodal strength and betweenness centrality. Despite similar small-worldness features, binary networks and weighted networks are distinctive in many aspects, such as modularity and nodal betweenness centrality. Inter-subject variability was examined for the weighted networks, along with the test-retest reliability from two repeated scans on 44 of the 59 subjects. The inter-/intra-subject variability of weighted networks was discussed in three levels - edge weights, local metrics, and global metrics. The variance of edge weights can be very large. Although local metrics show less variability than the edge weights, they still have considerable amounts of variability. Weighting scheme one, which scales the number of streamlines by their lengths, demonstrates stable intra-class correlation coefficients against thresholding for global efficiency, clustering coefficient and diversity. The intra-class correlation analysis suggests the current approach of constructing weighted network has a reasonably high reproducibility for most global metrics.

[Determination of the content of mineral elements in Cistanche tubulosa from different areas].

The contents of mineral elements in Cistanche tubulosa from different areas and in the soil in which they grew were determined by ICP-AES The results showed that: (1) the contents of K, P, Ca, Mg, Na, Fe, Mn, Zn and B were rich among different samples collected in five locations. (2) the concentrations of 5 macroelements were high values, in which the content of K was the highest in different aeras. the content of Fe was higher than other microelements and specilally, the Fe content from Xinjiang sample reached to 433.56 microg x g(-1). (3) the mineral elements absorption rate of Cistanche tubulosa is different in different areas and the absorption ability of K, Na and P was higher than other elements in Cistanche tubulosa. (4) the concentrations and utilization rate of mineral elements in Cistanche tubulosa from Xinjiang was higher than other areas. The results maybe provided scientific data and suggestion for the quality control of Cistanche tubulosa.

Connectivity and variability of related cognitive subregions lead to different stages of progression toward Alzheimer's disease.

Single modality MRI data is not enough to depict and discern the cause of the underlying brain pathology of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Most existing studies do not perform well with multi-group classification. To reveal the structural, functional connectivity and functional topological relationships among different stages of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and AD, a novel method was proposed in this paper for the analysis of regional importance with an improved deep learning model. Obvious drift of related cognitive regions can be observed in the prefrontal lobe and surrounding the cingulate area in the right hemisphere when comparing AD and healthy controls (HC) based on absolute weights in the classification mode. Alterations of these regions being responsible for cognitive impairment have been previously reported. Different parcellation atlases of the human cerebral cortex were compared, and the fine-grained multimodal parcellation HCPMMP performed the best with 180 cortical areas per hemisphere. In multi-group classification, the highest accuracy achieved was 96.86% with the utilization of structural and functional topological modalities as input to the training model. Weights in the trained model with perfect discriminating ability quantify the importance of each cortical region. This is the first time such a phenomenon is discovered and weights in cortical areas are precisely described in AD and its prodromal stages to the best of our knowledge. Our findings can establish other study models to differentiate the patterns in various diseases with cognitive impairments and help to identify the underlying pathology.

Parallel MR image reconstruction based on triple cycle optimization.

The self-calibration parallel imaging (SC-SENSE) method reconstructs the image by estimating the coil sensitivity matrix. In order to obtain the sensitivity matrix, it is necessary to take a small amount of automatic calibration signal lines (ACSL) in the center of k-space. This method uses the data of the central region to obtain the sensitivity matrix, and then the reconstructed image is obtained. This paper proposed the triple cycle optimization (TCO) method to continuously optimize reconstructed images. The proposed TCO method takes the sensitivity matrix obtained by ACSL and substituted the reconstructed image as the initial data generation into the loop, and estimates the k-space data repeatedly. A new sensitivity matrix is obtained by using k-space data and the reconstructed image, and a stable triple cycle is obtained. In the cycle, all data are optimized to a certain extent, including the reconstructed image. Experimental results show that under the same sampling density, images reconstructed by using the triple cycle optimization method have lower noise and artifacts than those of the traditional method. When combined with the variable density sampling method, the effect is remarkable with a much low sampling rate.

Predictive classification of Alzheimer's disease using brain imaging and genetic data.

For now, Alzheimer's disease (AD) is incurable. But if it can be diagnosed early, the correct treatment can be used to delay the disease. Most of the existing research methods use single or multi-modal imaging features for prediction, relatively few studies combine brain imaging with genetic features for disease diagnosis. In order to accurately identify AD, healthy control (HC) and the two stages of mild cognitive impairment (MCI: early MCI, late MCI) combined with brain imaging and genetic characteristics, we proposed an integrated Fisher score and multi-modal multi-task feature selection research method. We learned first genetic features with Fisher score to perform dimensionality reduction in order to solve the problem of the large difference between the feature scales of genetic and brain imaging. Then we learned the potential related features of brain imaging and genetic data, and multiplied the selected features with the learned weight coefficients. Through the feature selection program, five imaging and five genetic features were selected to achieve an average classification accuracy of 98% for HC and AD, 82% for HC and EMCI, 86% for HC and LMCI, 80% for EMCI and LMCI, 88% for EMCI and AD, and 72% for LMCI and AD. Compared with only using imaging features, the classification accuracy has been improved to a certain extent, and a set of interrelated features of brain imaging phenotypes and genetic factors were selected.

A review ofimaging genetics in Alzheimer's disease.

Determining the association between genetic variation and phenotype is a key step to study the mechanism of Alzheimer's disease (AD), laying the foundation for studying drug therapies and biomarkers. AD is the most common type of dementia in the aged population. At present, three early-onset AD genes (APP, PSEN1, PSEN2) and one late-onset AD susceptibility gene apolipoprotein E (APOE) have been determined. However, the pathogenesis of AD remains unknown. Imaging genetics, an emerging interdisciplinary field, is able to reveal the complex mechanisms from the genetic level to human cognition and mental disorders via macroscopic intermediates. This paper reviews methods of establishing genotype-phenotype to explore correlations, including sparse canonical correlation analysis, sparse reduced rank regression, sparse partial least squares and so on. We found that most research work did poorly in supervised learning and exploring the nonlinear relationship between SNP-QT.

Improved parallel magnetic resonance imaging reconstruction with multiple variable density sampling.

Generalized auto-calibrating partially parallel acquisitions (GRAPPA) and other parallel Magnetic Resonance Imaging (pMRI) methods restore the unacquired data in k-space by linearly calculating the undersampled data around the missing points. In order to obtain the weight of the linear calculation, a small number of auto-calibration signal (ACS) lines need to be sampled at the center of the k-space. Therefore, the sampling pattern used in this type of method is to full sample data in the middle area and undersample in the outer k-space with nominal reduction factors. In this paper, we propose a novel reconstruction method with a multiple variable density sampling (MVDS) that is different from traditional sampling patterns. Our method can significantly improve the image quality using multiple reduction factors with fewer ACS lines. Specifically, the traditional sampling pattern only uses a single reduction factor to uniformly undersample data in the region outside the ACS, but we use multiple reduction factors. When sampling the k-space data, we keep the ACS lines unchanged, use a smaller reduction factor for undersampling data near the ACS lines and a larger reduction factor for the outermost part of k-space. The error is lower after reconstruction of this region by undersampled data with a smaller reduction factor. The experimental results show that with the same amount of data sampled, using NL-GRAPPA to reconstruct the k-space data sampled by our method can result in lower noise and fewer artifacts than traditional methods. In particular, our method is extremely effective when the number of ACS lines is small.

Identifying and characterizing different stages toward Alzheimer's disease using ordered core features and machine learning.

Based on the joint HCPMMP parcellation method we developed before, which divides the cortical brain into 360 regions, the concept of ordered core features (OCF) is first proposed to reveal the functional brain connectivity relationship among different cohorts of Alzheimer's disease (AD), late mild cognitive impairment (LMCI), early mild cognitive impairment (EMCI) and healthy controls (HC). A set of core network features that change significantly under the specifically progressive relationship were extracted and used as supervised machine learning classifiers. The network nodes in this set mainly locate in the frontal lobe and insular, forming a narrow band, which are responsible for cognitive impairment as suggested by previous finding. By using these features, the accuracy ranged from 86.0% to 95.5% in binary classification between any pair of cohorts, higher than 70.1%-91.0% when using all network features. In multi-group classification, the average accuracy was 75% or 78% for HC, EMCI, LMCI or EMCI, LMCI, AD against baseline of 33%, and 53.3% for HC, EMCI, LMCI and AD against baseline of 25%. In addition, the recognition rate was lower when combining EMCI and LMCI patients into one group of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) for classification, suggesting that there exists a big difference between early and late MCI patients. This finding supports the EMCI/LMCI inclusion criteria introduced by ADNI based on neuropsychological assessments.

Strategies for multivariate analyses of imaging genetics study in Alzheimer's disease.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is an incurable neurodegenerative disease primarily affecting the elderly population. Early diagnosis of AD is critical for the management of this disease. Imaging genetics examines the influence of genetic variants (i.e., single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs)) on brain structure and function and many novel approaches of imaging genetics are proposed for studying AD. We review and synthesize the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) genetic associations with quantitative disease endophenotypes including structural and functional neuroimaging, diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), positron emission tomography (PET), and fluid biomarker assays. In this review, we survey recent publications using neuroimaging and genetic data of AD, with a focus on methods capturing multivariate effects accommodating the large number variables from both imaging data and genetic data. We review methods focused on bridging the imaging and genetic data by establishing genotype-phenotype association, including sparse canonical correlation analysis, parallel independent component analysis, sparse reduced rank regression, sparse partial least squares, genome-wide association study, and so on. The broad availability and wide scope of ADNI genetic and phenotypic data has advanced our understanding of the genetic basis of AD and has nominated novel targets for future pharmaceutical therapy and biomarker development.

Characteristics and variability of functional brain networks.

Functional brain networks were constructed from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data originating from 96 healthy adults. These networks possessed a total of 360 nodes, derived from the latest multi-modal brain parcellation method. A novel group network (overlay network) analysis model is proposed to study common attributes as well as differences found in the human brain by analysis of the functional brain network. Currently, the mean network is generally used to represent the group network. But mean networks have a modularity problem making them distinct from real networks. The overlay network is constructed by calculating the connections between the whole brain network regions, and then filtering the connections by limiting the threshold value. We find that the overlay network is closer to the real network condition of the group in terms of network characteristics related to modularity. Multiple network features are applied to investigate the discrepancies between the new group network and the mean network. Individual divergences between brain regions of everyone are also explored. Results show that the brain network of different people has a high consistency in the global measures, while there exist great differences for local measures in brain regions. Some brain regions show variability over other brain regions on most measures. In addition, we explored the impact of different thresholds on the overlay network and find that different thresholds have a greater impact on the clustering coefficient, maximized modularity, strength, and global efficiency.

Alzheimer's disease, mild cognitive impairment, and normal aging distinguished by multi-modal parcellation and machine learning.

A 360-area surface-based cortical parcellation is extended to study mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer's disease (AD) from healthy control (HC) using the joint human connectome project multi-modal parcellation (JHCPMMP) proposed by us. We propose a novel classification method named as JMMP-LRR to accurately identify different stages toward AD by integrating the JHCPMMP with the logistic regression-recursive feature elimination (LR-RFE). In three-group classification, the average accuracy is 89.0% for HC, MCI, and AD compared to previous studies using other cortical separation with the best classification accuracy of 81.5%. By counting the number of brain regions whose feature is in the feature subset selected with JMMP-LRR, we find that five brain areas often appear in the selected features. The five core brain areas are Fusiform Face Complex (L-FFC), Area 10d (L-10d), Orbital Frontal Complex (R-OFC), Perirhinal Ectorhinal (L-PeEc) and Area TG dorsal (L-TGd, R-TGd). The features corresponding to the five core brain areas are used to form a new feature subset for three classifications with the average accuracy of 80.0%. Results demonstrate the importance of the five core brain regions in identifying different stages toward AD. Experiment results show that the proposed method has better accuracy for the classification of HC, MCI, AD, and it also proves that the division of brain regions using JHCPMMP is more scientific and effective than other methods.

Regularized sensitivity encoding (SENSE) reconstruction using Bregman iterations.

In parallel imaging, the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of sensitivity encoding (SENSE) reconstruction is usually degraded by the ill-conditioning problem, which becomes especially serious at large acceleration factors. Existing regularization methods have been shown to alleviate the problem. However, they usually suffer from image artifacts at high acceleration factors due to the large data inconsistency resulting from heavy regularization. In this paper, we propose Bregman iteration for SENSE regularization. Unlike the existing regularization methods where the regularization function is fixed, the method adaptively updates the regularization function using the Bregman distance at different iterations, such that the iteration gradually removes the aliasing artifacts and recovers fine structures before the noise finally comes back. With a discrepancy principle as the stopping criterion, our results demonstrate that the reconstructed image using Bregman iteration preserves both sharp edges lost in Tikhonov regularization and fines structures missed in total variation (TV) regularization, while reducing more noise and aliasing artifacts.

KerNL: Kernel-Based Nonlinear Approach to Parallel MRI Reconstruction.

The conventional calibration-based parallel imaging method assumes a linear relationship between the acquired multi-channel k-space data and the unacquired missing data, where the linear coefficients are estimated using some auto-calibration data. In this paper, we first analyze the model errors in the conventional calibration-based methods and demonstrate the nonlinear relationship. Then, a much more general nonlinear framework is proposed for auto-calibrated parallel imaging. In this framework, kernel tricks are employed to represent the general nonlinear relationship between acquired and unacquired k-space data without increasing the computational complexity. Identification of the nonlinear relationship is still performed by solving linear equations. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method can achieve reconstruction quality superior to GRAPPA and NL-GRAPPA at high net reduction factors.