Morphometric Measurements of MRI Findings in Patients with Alzheimer’s Disease

Abstract

Background. Alzheimer's disease (AD) is one of the most common degenerative neurological disorders among elderly people, and is associated with progressive cerebral atrophy. AD is characterized by deterioration of the memory, difficulties with language, alterations in behavior and dysfunction in daily activities.Objectives. The purpose of the present study was to measure the total volumes of different parts of the brain of AD patients and healthy gender-matched controls using Cavalieri's volume estimate method, and to establish some brain ratios. Moreover, the authors wanted to test this method in measuring the volumes of various parts of the brain from MRI scans. Material and Methods. In this study, the MRI scans of 15 right-handed individuals with probable AD and 10 healthy controls were assessed. Cavalieri's volume estimate method was applied to the brain MRI scans to calculate the volumes of various parts of the brain. Results. While the measurements showed a marked increase in the volume of cerebral ventricles and sulci in AD patients in comparison to the gender-matched controls, the volumes of cortical gray matter and cerebral hemispheric brain matter were reduced considerably. However, no significant differences were detected in the volume of the cerebellum + brainstem or intracranium in AD patients. There were also no major variations between male and female values of the two groups. Conclusions. Overall, cerebral hemisphere and cortical gray matter atrophies were the most remarkable findings among AD patients in the present study; consequently, expansions of both the ventricles and subarachnoid space were formed. Cavalieri's volume estimate method was very efficient in calculating the volumes of different parts of brain from the MRI scans of both groups (Adv Clin Exp Med 2014, 23, 1, 91-96).

Brain ventricles, CSF and cognition: a narrative review

“…Although AD has its initial pathological changes in the entorhinal cortex of the medial temporal lobe and progresses to the hippocampus and then to various areas of the neocortex, 82 we found some studies reporting a similar or better correlation between the cognitive impairment of AD with measurements of BV than with those cortical structures 46,58,76,77,83,84 …”

“…The measurement technique could be linear (like Evans' index), area, volumetric, geometric, morphometric, or qualitative; in terms of imaging processing, the segmentation could be done manually, automatically, semi-automatically, or stereological. 18,27,[54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62][63][64][65][66] Besides population and cross-sectional versus longitudinal studies, these design differences lead to heterogeneous results and should be kept in mind.…”

“…81 Alzheimer's disease Although AD has its initial pathological changes in the entorhinal cortex of the medial temporal lobe and progresses to the hippocampus and then to various areas of the neocortex, 82 we found some studies reporting a similar or better correlation between the cognitive impairment of AD with measurements of BV than with those cortical structures. 46,58,76,77,83,84 Analysis of the ventricular system is capable of identifying brain atrophy earlier than measures of parenchyma in carriers of some neurodegenerationassociated genes, such as DAT1 variants 85 and APOE epsilon-4 allele, 36 even without measurable cognitive decline.…”

The importance of precise plane selection for female adult Chiari Type I malformation midsagittal morphometrics

“…They found that McRae’s line and basion to posterior axial line were significantly different in cases with certain prevalent conditions than those without such conditions. In another study, Yucel et al revealed the use of morphometric measurements in diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease, which further highlights morphometric measurements as a potential diagnostic tool for various neurological conditions [ 10 ].…”

“…The current diagnosis process utilizes imaging of the cerebellar tonsils, patient-reported symptoms, and neurological signs. One area of CMI research involves morphometric measurements evaluated on structural magnetic resonance images (MRI) [2,4,[6][7][8][9][10]. Eppelheimer et al illustrated the significance of morphometric measurements to identify prevalent conditions related to CMI morphometrics [8].…”