Comparison of brain microstructure alterations on diffusion kurtosis imaging among Alzheimer's disease, mild cognitive impairment, and cognitively normal individuals

Xiaoqi Chu; Peng Wu; Hongting Yan; Xuejing Chen; Liting Fan; Zheng Wu; Chunmei Tao; Yue Ma; Yu Fu; Yunchu Guo; Yang Dong; Chao Yang; Yusong Ge

doi:10.3389/fnagi.2022.919143

Comparison of brain microstructure alterations on diffusion kurtosis imaging among Alzheimer's disease, mild cognitive impairment, and cognitively normal individuals

Front Aging Neurosci. 2022 Aug 12:14:919143. doi: 10.3389/fnagi.2022.919143. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Xiaoqi Chu^{1

2}, Peng Wu³, Hongting Yan¹, Xuejing Chen¹, Liting Fan¹, Zheng Wu¹, Chunmei Tao¹, Yue Ma¹, Yu Fu¹, Yunchu Guo¹, Yang Dong³, Chao Yang⁴, Yusong Ge¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Neurology, Second Affiliated Hospital of Dalian Medical University, Dalian, China.
² School of Medicine, Nankai University, Tianjin, China.
³ Department of Radiology, Second Affiliated Hospital of Dalian Medical University, Dalian, China.
⁴ Department of Radiology, First Affiliated Hospital of Dalian Medical University, Dalian, China.

Abstract

Objective: Our study aimed to explore the differences in brain microstructure in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and in individuals with normal cognition using diffusion kurtosis imaging (DKI) to identify a potential non-invasive biomarker of AD.

Materials and methods: A total of 61 subjects were included in our study, including 20 subjects diagnosed with AD, 21 patients diagnosed with amnestic MCI, and 20 cognitively normal individuals. We acquired magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans, and DKI images were processed. Twelve regions of interest were drawn, and various parameters were measured and analyzed using SPSS version 11.0 software.

Results: Comparative analysis showed that differences in brain regions in terms of mean diffusion (MD) and mean kurtosis (MK) between groups were the most marked. Precuneus MD, temporal MK, precuneus MK, and hippocampal MK were significantly correlated with neuropsychological test scores. Hippocampal MK showed the strongest correlation with the medial temporal lobe atrophy score (r = -0.510), and precuneus MD had the strongest correlation with the Koedam score (r = 0.463). The receiver operating curve analysis revealed that hippocampal MK exhibited better diagnostic efficacy than precuneus MD for comparisons between any group pair.

Conclusion: DKI is capable of detecting differences in brain microstructure between patients with AD, patients with MCI, and cognitively normal individuals. Moreover, it compensates for the deficiencies of conventional MRI in detecting pathological changes in microstructure before the appearance of macroscopic atrophy. Hippocampus MK was the most sensitive single parameter map for differentiating patients with AD, patients with MCI, and cognitively normal individuals.

Keywords: Alzheimer’s disease; brain microstructure alterations; diffusion kurtosis imaging; mild cognitive impairment; neuropsychological test.