Detection of Alzheimer's Disease using cortical diffusion tensor imaging.

Area of Science:

• Neuroimaging
• Neurology
• Medical Diagnostics

Background:

• Alzheimer's Disease (AD) is characterized by progressive neurodegeneration.
• Current diagnostic methods for AD can be invasive or costly.
• There is a need for non-invasive tools to assess cortical changes in AD.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate a novel in-vivo brain MRI analysis technique for detecting cortical architecture alterations in Alzheimer's Disease (AD).
• To validate the method's accuracy in distinguishing AD patients from healthy controls across multiple cohorts.
• To explore the potential of this MRI method within the Amyloid, Tau, Neurodegeneration (ATN) framework.

Main Methods:

• Utilized three distinct cohorts: Discovery, Test, and an ADNI 3 cohort (ATN framework).
• Applied a novel in-vivo brain MRI analysis method to assess cortical grey matter quality.
• Compared MRI findings with amyloid and Tau Positron Emission Tomography (PET) data in the ATN cohort.

Main Results:

• The MRI analysis method successfully identified altered cortical grey matter quality in AD patients.
• The method demonstrated good to excellent accuracy in differentiating AD patients from healthy controls.
• The technique showed potential as an index of cortical microstructure quality and a marker of neurodegeneration.

Conclusions:

• The novel in-vivo brain MRI method offers a valuable tool for assessing Alzheimer's Disease.
• This technique can serve as an objective measure of neurodegeneration within the ATN classification system.
• Further development could enhance AD diagnosis, patient stratification, and treatment monitoring in clinical trials.