| 1. |
- Looi, Jeffrey C. L., et al.
(författare)
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Morphometric analysis of subcortical structures in progressive supranuclear palsy: In vivo evidence of neostriatal and mesencephalic atrophy
- 2011
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Ingår i: Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging. - : Elsevier BV. - 0925-4927. ; 194:2, s. 163-175
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) is a neurodegenerative disease characterized by gait and postural disturbance, gaze palsy, apathy, decreased verbal fluency and dysexecutive symptoms, with some of these clinical features potentially having origins in degeneration of frontostriatal circuits and the mesencephalon. This hypothesis was investigated by manual segmentation of the caudate and putamen on MRI scans, using previously published protocols, in 15 subjects with PSP and 15 healthy age-matched controls. Midbrain atrophy was assessed by measurement of mid-sagittal area of the midbrain and pons. Shape analysis of the caudate and putamen was performed using spherical harmonics (SPHARM-PDM, University of North Carolina). The sagittal pons area/midbrain area ratio (P/M ratio) was significantly higher in the PSP group, consistent with previous findings. Significantly smaller striatal volumes were found in the PSP group - putamina were 10% smaller and caudate volumes were 17% smaller than in controls after controlling for age and intracranial volume. Shape analysis revealed significant shape deflation in PSP in the striatum, compared to controls; with regionally significant change relevant to frontostriatal and corticostriatal circuits in the caudate. Thus, in a clinically diagnosed and biomarker-confirmed cohort with early PSP, we demonstrate that neostriatal volume and shape are significantly reduced in vivo. The findings suggest a neostriatal and mesencephalic structural basis for the clinical features of PSP leading to frontostriatal and mesocortical-striatal circuit disruption. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.
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| 2. |
- Spotorno, Nicola, et al.
(författare)
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Plasma neurofilament light protein correlates with diffusion tensor imaging metrics in frontotemporal dementia
- 2020
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Ingår i: Plos One. - : Public Library of Science (PLoS). - 1932-6203. ; 15:10
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Neurofilaments are structural components of neurons and are particularly abundant in highly myelinated axons. The levels of neurofilament light chain (NfL) in both cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and plasma have been related to degeneration in several neurodegenerative conditions including frontotemporal dementia (FTD) and NfL is currently considered as the most promising diagnostic and prognostic fluid biomarker in FTD. Although the location and function of filaments in the healthy nervous system suggests a link between increased NfL and white matter degeneration, such a claim has not been fully elucidated in vivo, especially in the context of FTD. The present study provides evidence of an association between the plasma levels of NfL and white matter involvement in behavioral variant FTD (bvFTD) by relating plasma concentration of NfL to diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) metrics in a group of 20 bvFTD patients. The results of both voxel-wise and tract specific analysis showed that increased plasma NfL concentration is associated with a reduction in fractional anisotropy (FA) in a widespread set of white matter tracts including the superior longitudinal fasciculus, the fronto-occipital fasciculus the anterior thalamic radiation and the dorsal cingulum bundle. Plasma NfL concentration also correlated with cortical thinning in a portion of the right medial prefrontal cortex and of the right lateral orbitofrontal cortex. These results support the hypothesis that blood NfL levels reflect the global level of neurodegeneration in bvFTD and help to advance our understanding of the association between this blood biomarker for FTD and the disease process.
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| 3. |
- Szczepankiewicz, Filip, et al.
(författare)
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Quantification of microscopic diffusion anisotropy disentangles effects of orientation dispersion from microstructure: Applications in healthy volunteers and in brain tumors
- 2015
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Ingår i: NeuroImage. - : Elsevier BV. - 1095-9572 .- 1053-8119. ; 104, s. 241-252
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The anisotropy of water diffusion in brain tissue is affected by both disease and development. This change can be detected using diffusion MRI and is often quantified by the fractional anisotropy (FA) derived from diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). Although FA is sensitive to anisotropic cell structures, such as axons, it is also sensitive to their orientation dispersion. This is a major limitation to the use of FA as a biomarker for "tissue integrity", especially in regions of complex microarchitecture. In this work, we seek to circumvent this limitation by disentangling the effects of microscopic diffusion anisotropy from the orientation dispersion. The microscopic fractional anisotropy (mu FA) and the order parameter (OP) were calculated from the contrast between signal prepared with directional and isotropic diffusion encoding, where the latter was achieved by magic angle spinning of the q-vector (qMAS). These parameters were quantified in healthy volunteers and in two patients; one patient with meningioma and one with glioblastoma. Finally, we used simulations to elucidate the relation between FA and mu FA in various micro-architectures. Generally, mu FA was high in the white matter and low in the gray matter. In the white matter, the largest differences between mu FA and FA were found in crossing white matter and in interfaces between large white matter tracts, where mu FA was high while FA was low. Both tumor types exhibited a low FA, in contrast to the mu FA which was high in the meningioma and low in the glioblastoma, indicating that the meningioma contained disordered anisotropic structures, while the glioblastoma did not. This interpretation was confirmed by histological examination. We conclude that FA from DTI reflects both the amount of diffusion anisotropy and orientation dispersion. We suggest that the mu FA and OP may complement FA by independently quantifying the microscopic anisotropy and the level of orientation coherence. (C) 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc.
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