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Updated: May 15, 2026

Whole-brain Segmentation and Change-point Analysis of Anatomical Brain MRI—Application in Premanifest Huntington's Disease
Published on: June 9, 2018
Regionally selective atrophy of subcortical structures in prodromal HD as revealed by statistical shape analysis
Laurent Younes1, J Tilak Ratnanather, Timothy Brown
1Center for Imaging Science, Institute for Computational Medicine and Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics, Johns Hopkins University, WSE, Baltimore, Maryland.
Abstract:
Huntington disease (HD) is a neurodegenerative disorder that involves preferential atrophy in the striatal complex and related subcortical nuclei. In this article, which is based on a dataset extracted from the PREDICT-HD study, we use statistical shape analysis with deformation markers obtained through "Large Deformation Diffeomorphic Metric Mapping" of cortical surfaces to highlight specific atrophy patterns in the caudate, putamen, and globus pallidus, at different prodromal stages of the disease. On the basis of the relation to cortico-basal ganglia circuitry, we propose that statistical shape analysis, along with other structural and functional imaging studies, may help expand our understanding of the brain circuitry affected and other aspects of the neurobiology of HD, and also guide the most effective strategies for intervention.
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