Cerebral Degeneration in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Revealed by 3-Dimensional Texture Analysis

Abstract

Introduction: Routine MR images do not consistently reveal pathological changes in the brain in ALS. Texture analysis, a method to quantitate voxel intensities and their patterns and interrelationships, can detect changes in images not apparent to the naked eye. Our objective was to evaluate cerebral degeneration in ALS using 3-dimensional texture analysis of MR images of the brain.Methods: In a case-control design, voxel-based texture analysis was performed on T1-weighted MR images of 20 healthy subjects and 19 patients with ALS. Four texture features, namely, autocorrelation, sum of squares variance, sum average, and sum variance were computed. Texture features were compared between the groups by statistical parametric mapping and correlated with clinical measures of disability and upper motor neuron dysfunction.Results: Texture features were different in ALS in motor regions including the precentral gyrus and corticospinal tracts. To a lesser extent, changes were also found in the thalamus, cingulate gyrus, and temporal lobe. Texture features in the precentral gyrus correlated with disease duration, and in the corticospinal tract they correlated with finger tapping speed.Conclusions: Changes in MR image textures are present in motor and non-motor regions in ALS and correlate with clinical features. Whole brain texture analysis has potential in providing biomarkers of cerebral degeneration in ALS.

Corticospinal tract degeneration in ALS unmasked in T1‐weighted images using texture analysis

“…Textures from T1W images correctly classified patients and controls with 97.0% (100% sensitivity, 92.9% specificity) and 94.9% (92.3% sensitivity, 100% specificity) accuracy in two independent cohorts. This strong discriminatory ability of texture analysis in ALS was observed in a previous study that obtained 95% sensitivity and 90% specificity using textures from the CST in T1W images (Maani et al, 2016). Significant correlations were found between the textures and the UMN burden score indicating that changes detected in vivo by texture analysis of T1W images are associated with the underlying pathology of ALS.…”

“…A novel three-dimensional (3D) voxel-wise texture analysis method also revealed the spatial pattern of pathology involving the medial temporal lobes in Alzheimer's disease in a hypothesis-free study (Maani, Yang, & Kalra, 2015). In ALS, texture changes have been observed in the CST and the deep gray nuclei (Albuquerque et al, 2016;Maani, Yang, Emery, & Kalra, 2016). However, the pathological substrates that underlie texture changes have not yet been investigated.…”

Reliability of 3D texture analysis: A multicenter MRI study of the brain

“…However, voxelwise 3D TA instead computes the statistical differences in texture values. This technique has shown to be highly sensitive and specific in both Alzheimer's disease and ALS, supporting its potential as an imaging biomarker and diagnostic tool …”

“…TA has potential for clinical use, providing information on many neurological disorders. Indeed, it has been used to study intracranial brain tumors, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's disease, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) …”

“…Indeed, it has been used to study intracranial brain tumors, 3,4 epilepsy, 5,6 multiple sclerosis, 1,7,8 Alzheimer's disease, [9][10][11][12][13] and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). [14][15][16][17] Previous methods of using TA have been limited to 2D region-of-interest (ROI)-based approaches. To address this limitation, a novel 3D TA technique based on the popular gray-level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM) method was previously developed.…”