Basal Ganglia abnormalities in ALS: Texture and volumetric analysis

Abstract

Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is the most common motor neuron disease in adults and characterized by extensive corticospinal damage. Pathological studies also suggest basal ganglia (BG) damage, but this is not yet settled. We thus used texture and volumetric analyses to investigate possible abnormalities in BG of 32 ALS patients in comparison with 32 healthy controls. We used MRI T1 volumetric sequences for segmentation. For statistic analyses, we used Mann-Whitney test, with a significance level of 0.025 (FDR-Corrected). Texture parameters were different in patients with ALS, mainly in the thalami and caudate nuclei. In contrast, volumetric analyses only found right thalamic atrophy. Our data confirm BG involvement, and suggest that texture abnormalities may precede true volumetric changes, emerging as a potential neuroimaging marker for ALS.