Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 25, 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
Automatic voxel-based morphometry of structural MRI by SPM8 plus diffeomorphic anatomic registration through
H Matsuda1, S Mizumura, K Nemoto
1Department of Nuclear Medicine, Saitama Medical University International Medical Center, Hidaka, Saitama, Japan. matsudah@saitama-med.ac.jp
Background And Purpose:
The necessity for structural MRI is greater than ever to both diagnose AD in its early stage and objectively evaluate its progression. We propose a new VBM-based software program for automatic detection of early specific atrophy in AD.
Materials And Methods:
A target VOI was determined by group comparison of 30 patients with very mild AD and 40 age-matched healthy controls by using SPM. Then this target VOI was incorporated into a newly developed automated software program independently running on a Windows PC for VBM by using SPM8 plus DARTEL. ROC analysis was performed for discrimination of 116 other patients with AD with very mild stage (n = 45), mild stage (n = 30) and moderate-to-advanced stages (n = 41) from 40 other age-matched healthy controls by using a z score map in the target VOI.
Results:
Medial temporal structures involving the entire region of the entorhinal cortex, hippocampus, and amygdala showed significant atrophy in the patients with very mild AD and were determined as a target VOI. When we used the severity score of atrophy in this target VOI, 91.6%, 95.8%, and 98.2% accuracies were obtained in the very mild AD, mild AD, and moderate-to-severe AD groups, respectively. In the very mild AD group, a high specificity of 97.5% with a sensitivity of 86.4% was obtained, and age at onset of AD did not influence this accuracy.
Conclusions:
This software program with application of SPM8 plus DARTEL to VBM provides a high performance for AD diagnosis by using MRI.
