An MRI-based analysis of volume changes of brainstem and deep brain nuclei in patients with Alzheimer's disease / 中华神经医学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To study the MR images of patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) for analysis of the volume changes ofbrainstem and deep brain nuclei,hoping to provide evidence for early clinical diagnosis.Methods Selected for this study were MRI images from the ADNI database from July 2006 to November 2010 of 31 AD patients (AD group),34 patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI group),and 34 normal aged people (NC group).The follow-up MRI data of all the above subjects 2 years later were also collected.Software Freesufer was used to calculate and compare the volume changes ofbrainstem and deep brain nuclei in all the subjects.Results An identical trend was found concerning the MRI-based volumes of brainstem,hippocampus and deep brain nuclei (caudal nucleus and putamen) before and after follow-up between the 3 groups:AD group＜MCI group＜NC group,with statistically significant differences between groups (P＜0.05).Follow-ups revealed significant decreases in all the indicators in AD and MCI groups (P＜0.05),but no such differences in NC group (P＞0.05).Pearson relative analysis showed a positive correlation between the brainstem volume and the volume of deep brain nuclei (caudal nucleus and putamen) in AD patients (r=0.653,P=0.021;r=0.596,P=0.014).Conclusions As AD progresses,the brainstem and deep brain nuclei in AD patients continue to shrink in volume and there may be a positive correlation between them.Therefore,detection of the volume changes of the brainstem and deep brain nuclei contributes to the early diagnosis of AD.