Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 26, 2026
Lesion Explorer: A Video-guided, Standardized Protocol for Accurate and Reliable MRI-derived Volumetrics in Alzheimer's Disease and Normal Elderly
Published on: April 14, 2014
A comparison between the accuracy of voxel-based morphometry and hippocampal volumetry in Alzheimer's disease
Cristina Testa1, Mikko P Laakso, Francesca Sabattoli
1Laboratory of Epidemiology and Neuroimaging, IRCCS San Giovanni di Dio - FBF, Brescia, Italy.
Purpose:
To compare the accuracy of voxel-based morphometry (VBM) and region of interest (ROI)-based hippocampal volumetry to detect medial temporal lobe atrophy in Alzheimer's disease (AD).
Materials And Methods:
A total of 27 AD patients (age 74 +/- 9 years; 22 women; Mini-Mental State Exam [MMSE] 21 +/- 4) and 25 controls (age 70 +/- 8; 16 women; MMSE 29 +/- 1) were studied. Accuracy of VBM to detect gray matter loss in those seven AD patients and 11 controls with similar ROI-based hippocampal measures and of ROI-based volumetry to detect gray matter loss in those four AD patients and five controls with similar VBM-based hippocampal measures was assessed. VBM was performed with statistical parametric mapping (SPM99).
Results:
The area under the curve was 0.96 (95% C.I., 0.92-1.00) for VBM, 0.89 (95% C.I., 0.80-0.98) for ROI-based hippocampal measures, and 0.99 (95% C.I., 0.96-1.00) for both. In subjects with similar ROI-based hippocampal measures, VBM detected atrophy in AD patients at P < 0.0001, while in subjects with similar VBM-based hippocampal measure, volumetry was not significant (P = 0.11). Both measures independently contributed to discrimination (P = 0.004 and P = 0.032) in a logistic regression model.
Conclusion:
These results indicate that VBM is more accurate, but the combination of both methods provides the highest accuracy for detection of hippocampal atrophy in AD.
