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Updated: Apr 6, 2026
Diffusion Tensor Magnetic Resonance Imaging in the Analysis of Neurodegenerative Diseases
Published on: July 28, 2013
Short-term white matter alterations in Alzheimer's disease characterized by diffusion tensor imaging
Sila Genc1,2,3, Christopher E Steward1,2, Charles B Malpas2,4
1Department of Radiology, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia.
Purpose:
To investigate whether there are any white matter changes in a 6-month follow-up of mild-moderate Alzheimer's patients using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI).
Materials And Methods:
We recruited 18 mild-moderate Alzheimer's disease patients and they underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) at recruitment and at 6-month follow-up. Diffusion MRI images were processed using DTI-ToolKit to create a population-based tensor template. This template was integrated with a voxel-wise and atlas-based analysis in FSL to determine the magnitude and location of change in diffusion metrics over the 6-month follow-up period.
Results:
There were significant widespread changes in diffusion metrics across the entire white matter skeleton (P < 0.001), 95% confidence interval (CI) difference in fractional anisotropy: -0.007 (-0.011, -0.002), mean diffusivity: 0.040 (0.023, 0.058), axial diffusivity: 0.015 (0.008, 0.022), radial diffusivity: 0.012 (0.006, 0.019), as well as regions of interest in the splenium and superior longitudinal fasciculus.
Conclusion:
Our findings show that diffusion metrics are altered in a 6-month follow-up period of mild-moderate Alzheimer's patients, supporting the potential of DTI metrics to act as sensitive biomarkers for disease progression even over a relatively short time interval, and the potential utility to be applied to clinical trials of putative disease-modifying therapies.
