Multivariate Analysis of White Matter Structural Networks of Alzheimer's Disease

Annu Int Conf IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc. 2018 Jul:2018:1140-1143. doi: 10.1109/EMBC.2018.8512553.

Abstract

The connectome-wide association studies exploring association between brain connectome and disease phenotypes have suffered from massive number of comparisons. In this paper, we propose to apply a multivariate distance-based analytic framework on brain white matter (WM) structural networks invaded by Alzheimer's disease (AD). Eighty-three subjects including patients with AD, amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) and healthy subjects were scanned with dMRI. By constructing WM structural network for each individual, we used both multivariate and traditional univariate statistical models to complimentarily analyze network pattern and fiber strength changes due to AD. WM connections linked with several brain structures were found significantly changed between AD group and normal controls. No significant findings were observed between aMCI group and normal controls. Our results demonstrate the sensitivity of the combined connectome-based analytic framework in detecting abnormalities of structural brain network.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Alzheimer Disease*
  • Brain
  • Cognitive Dysfunction*
  • Humans
  • Multivariate Analysis
  • White Matter*