A voxel-based MRI morphometric study of Alzheimer's disease

Objective: To assess the diagnostic value of voxel-based Morphometry (VBM) in studying Alzheimer's disease (AD). Methods: Graymatter density were comprehensive assessed by means of VBM on T1-weighted MRI volume sets in 19 patients with AD and 15 healthy subjects of similar age and gender ratio, 15 healthy adults. The data were collected on Siemens 1.5 T Sonata MRI systems and analyzed by SPM 99 to generate gray matter density map. Results: Relative to healthy controls, significant clusters of reduced gray matter density were found to affect medial temporal lobe ( hippocampus) (P<0.001). For hippocampus, reduced gray matter density were 1529 in the right and 1281 in the left with right-sided predominance. Moreover, atrophy of right caudate head and left medial thalamus were showed. We demonstrate global asymmetrical cortical atrophy with sparing of the sensorimotor cortex, occipital lobe and cerebellum. Conclusion: The results from VBM are in perfect agreement with those of earlier neuroimaging, which confirmed its value in demonstrating neuroanatomy of AD. VBM, the simple and automatic approach providing a full-brain assessment of AD morphology, has a good clinical perspective. (authors)