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White matter damage in frontotemporal dementia and Alzheimer's disease measured by diffusion MRI

Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) and Alzheimer's disease are sometimes difficult to differentiate clinically because of overlapping symptoms. Using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) measurements of fractional anisotropy (FA) can be useful in distinguishing the different patterns of white matter degra...

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Autores principales: Zhang, Yu, Schuff, Norbert, Du, An-Tao, Rosen, Howard J., Kramer, Joel H., Gorno-Tempini, Maria Luisa, Miller, Bruce L., Weiner, Michael W.
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Oxford University Press 2009
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2732263/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19439421
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/brain/awp071
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author Zhang, Yu
Schuff, Norbert
Du, An-Tao
Rosen, Howard J.
Kramer, Joel H.
Gorno-Tempini, Maria Luisa
Miller, Bruce L.
Weiner, Michael W.
author_facet Zhang, Yu
Schuff, Norbert
Du, An-Tao
Rosen, Howard J.
Kramer, Joel H.
Gorno-Tempini, Maria Luisa
Miller, Bruce L.
Weiner, Michael W.
author_sort Zhang, Yu
collection PubMed
description Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) and Alzheimer's disease are sometimes difficult to differentiate clinically because of overlapping symptoms. Using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) measurements of fractional anisotropy (FA) can be useful in distinguishing the different patterns of white matter degradation between the two dementias. In this study, we performed MRI scans in a 4 Tesla MRI machine including T(1)-weighted structural images and diffusion tensor images in 18 patients with FTD, 18 patients with Alzheimer's disease and 19 cognitively normal (CN) controls. FA was measured selectively in specific fibre tracts (including corpus callosum, cingulum, uncinate and corticospinal tracts) as well as globally in a voxel-by-voxel analysis. Patients with FTD were associated with reductions of FA in frontal and temporal regions including the anterior corpus callosum (P < 0.001), bilateral anterior (left P < 0.001; right P = 0.005), descending (left P < 0.001; right P = 0.003) cingulum tracts, and uncinate tracts (left P < 0.001; right P = 0.005), compared to controls. Patients with Alzheimer's disease were associated with reductions of FA in parietal, temporal and frontal regions including the left anterior (P = 0.003) and posterior (P = 0.002) cingulum tracts, bilateral descending cingulum tracts (P < 0.001) and left uncinate tracts (P < 0.001) compared to controls. When compared with Alzheimer's disease, FTD was associated with greater reductions of FA in frontal brain regions, whereas no region in Alzheimer's disease showed greater reductions of FA when compared to FTD. In conclusion, the regional patterns of anisotropy reduction in FTD and Alzheimer's disease compared to controls suggest a characteristic distribution of white matter degradation in each disease. Moreover, the white matter degradation seems to be more prominent in FTD than in Alzheimer's disease. Taken together, the results suggest that white matter degradation measured with DTI may improve the diagnostic differentiation between FTD and Alzheimer's disease.
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spelling pubmed-27322632009-08-27 White matter damage in frontotemporal dementia and Alzheimer's disease measured by diffusion MRI Zhang, Yu Schuff, Norbert Du, An-Tao Rosen, Howard J. Kramer, Joel H. Gorno-Tempini, Maria Luisa Miller, Bruce L. Weiner, Michael W. Brain Original Articles Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) and Alzheimer's disease are sometimes difficult to differentiate clinically because of overlapping symptoms. Using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) measurements of fractional anisotropy (FA) can be useful in distinguishing the different patterns of white matter degradation between the two dementias. In this study, we performed MRI scans in a 4 Tesla MRI machine including T(1)-weighted structural images and diffusion tensor images in 18 patients with FTD, 18 patients with Alzheimer's disease and 19 cognitively normal (CN) controls. FA was measured selectively in specific fibre tracts (including corpus callosum, cingulum, uncinate and corticospinal tracts) as well as globally in a voxel-by-voxel analysis. Patients with FTD were associated with reductions of FA in frontal and temporal regions including the anterior corpus callosum (P < 0.001), bilateral anterior (left P < 0.001; right P = 0.005), descending (left P < 0.001; right P = 0.003) cingulum tracts, and uncinate tracts (left P < 0.001; right P = 0.005), compared to controls. Patients with Alzheimer's disease were associated with reductions of FA in parietal, temporal and frontal regions including the left anterior (P = 0.003) and posterior (P = 0.002) cingulum tracts, bilateral descending cingulum tracts (P < 0.001) and left uncinate tracts (P < 0.001) compared to controls. When compared with Alzheimer's disease, FTD was associated with greater reductions of FA in frontal brain regions, whereas no region in Alzheimer's disease showed greater reductions of FA when compared to FTD. In conclusion, the regional patterns of anisotropy reduction in FTD and Alzheimer's disease compared to controls suggest a characteristic distribution of white matter degradation in each disease. Moreover, the white matter degradation seems to be more prominent in FTD than in Alzheimer's disease. Taken together, the results suggest that white matter degradation measured with DTI may improve the diagnostic differentiation between FTD and Alzheimer's disease. Oxford University Press 2009-09 2009-05-12 /pmc/articles/PMC2732263/ /pubmed/19439421 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/brain/awp071 Text en © 2009 The Author(s) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/ This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Original Articles
Zhang, Yu
Schuff, Norbert
Du, An-Tao
Rosen, Howard J.
Kramer, Joel H.
Gorno-Tempini, Maria Luisa
Miller, Bruce L.
Weiner, Michael W.
White matter damage in frontotemporal dementia and Alzheimer's disease measured by diffusion MRI
title White matter damage in frontotemporal dementia and Alzheimer's disease measured by diffusion MRI
title_full White matter damage in frontotemporal dementia and Alzheimer's disease measured by diffusion MRI
title_fullStr White matter damage in frontotemporal dementia and Alzheimer's disease measured by diffusion MRI
title_full_unstemmed White matter damage in frontotemporal dementia and Alzheimer's disease measured by diffusion MRI
title_short White matter damage in frontotemporal dementia and Alzheimer's disease measured by diffusion MRI
title_sort white matter damage in frontotemporal dementia and alzheimer's disease measured by diffusion mri
topic Original Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2732263/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19439421
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/brain/awp071
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