White matter damage in frontotemporal dementia and Alzheimer's disease measured by diffusion MRI

Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) and Alzheimer's disease are sometimes difficult to differentiate clinically because of overlapping symptoms. Using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) measurements of fractional anisotropy (FA) can be useful in distinguishing the different patterns of white matter degra...

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Main Authors:	Zhang, Yu, Schuff, Norbert, Du, An-Tao, Rosen, Howard J., Kramer, Joel H., Gorno-Tempini, Maria Luisa, Miller, Bruce L., Weiner, Michael W.
Format:	Online
Language:	English
Published:	Oxford University Press 2009
Online Access:	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2732263/

id	pubmed-2732263
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	pubmed-27322632009-08-27 White matter damage in frontotemporal dementia and Alzheimer's disease measured by diffusion MRI Zhang, Yu Schuff, Norbert Du, An-Tao Rosen, Howard J. Kramer, Joel H. Gorno-Tempini, Maria Luisa Miller, Bruce L. Weiner, Michael W. Original Articles Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) and Alzheimer's disease are sometimes difficult to differentiate clinically because of overlapping symptoms. Using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) measurements of fractional anisotropy (FA) can be useful in distinguishing the different patterns of white matter degradation between the two dementias. In this study, we performed MRI scans in a 4 Tesla MRI machine including T1-weighted structural images and diffusion tensor images in 18 patients with FTD, 18 patients with Alzheimer's disease and 19 cognitively normal (CN) controls. FA was measured selectively in specific fibre tracts (including corpus callosum, cingulum, uncinate and corticospinal tracts) as well as globally in a voxel-by-voxel analysis. Patients with FTD were associated with reductions of FA in frontal and temporal regions including the anterior corpus callosum (P < 0.001), bilateral anterior (left P < 0.001; right P = 0.005), descending (left P < 0.001; right P = 0.003) cingulum tracts, and uncinate tracts (left P < 0.001; right P = 0.005), compared to controls. Patients with Alzheimer's disease were associated with reductions of FA in parietal, temporal and frontal regions including the left anterior (P = 0.003) and posterior (P = 0.002) cingulum tracts, bilateral descending cingulum tracts (P < 0.001) and left uncinate tracts (P < 0.001) compared to controls. When compared with Alzheimer's disease, FTD was associated with greater reductions of FA in frontal brain regions, whereas no region in Alzheimer's disease showed greater reductions of FA when compared to FTD. In conclusion, the regional patterns of anisotropy reduction in FTD and Alzheimer's disease compared to controls suggest a characteristic distribution of white matter degradation in each disease. Moreover, the white matter degradation seems to be more prominent in FTD than in Alzheimer's disease. Taken together, the results suggest that white matter degradation measured with DTI may improve the diagnostic differentiation between FTD and Alzheimer's disease. Oxford University Press 2009-09 2009-05-12 /pmc/articles/PMC2732263/ /pubmed/19439421 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/brain/awp071 Text en © 2009 The Author(s) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/ This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
repository_type	Open Access Journal
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	US National Center for Biotechnology Information
building	NCBI PubMed
collection	Online Access
language	English
format	Online
author	Zhang, Yu Schuff, Norbert Du, An-Tao Rosen, Howard J. Kramer, Joel H. Gorno-Tempini, Maria Luisa Miller, Bruce L. Weiner, Michael W.
spellingShingle	Zhang, Yu Schuff, Norbert Du, An-Tao Rosen, Howard J. Kramer, Joel H. Gorno-Tempini, Maria Luisa Miller, Bruce L. Weiner, Michael W. White matter damage in frontotemporal dementia and Alzheimer's disease measured by diffusion MRI
author_facet	Zhang, Yu Schuff, Norbert Du, An-Tao Rosen, Howard J. Kramer, Joel H. Gorno-Tempini, Maria Luisa Miller, Bruce L. Weiner, Michael W.
author_sort	Zhang, Yu
title	White matter damage in frontotemporal dementia and Alzheimer's disease measured by diffusion MRI
title_short	White matter damage in frontotemporal dementia and Alzheimer's disease measured by diffusion MRI
title_full	White matter damage in frontotemporal dementia and Alzheimer's disease measured by diffusion MRI
title_fullStr	White matter damage in frontotemporal dementia and Alzheimer's disease measured by diffusion MRI
title_full_unstemmed	White matter damage in frontotemporal dementia and Alzheimer's disease measured by diffusion MRI
title_sort	white matter damage in frontotemporal dementia and alzheimer's disease measured by diffusion mri
description	Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) and Alzheimer's disease are sometimes difficult to differentiate clinically because of overlapping symptoms. Using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) measurements of fractional anisotropy (FA) can be useful in distinguishing the different patterns of white matter degradation between the two dementias. In this study, we performed MRI scans in a 4 Tesla MRI machine including T1-weighted structural images and diffusion tensor images in 18 patients with FTD, 18 patients with Alzheimer's disease and 19 cognitively normal (CN) controls. FA was measured selectively in specific fibre tracts (including corpus callosum, cingulum, uncinate and corticospinal tracts) as well as globally in a voxel-by-voxel analysis. Patients with FTD were associated with reductions of FA in frontal and temporal regions including the anterior corpus callosum (P < 0.001), bilateral anterior (left P < 0.001; right P = 0.005), descending (left P < 0.001; right P = 0.003) cingulum tracts, and uncinate tracts (left P < 0.001; right P = 0.005), compared to controls. Patients with Alzheimer's disease were associated with reductions of FA in parietal, temporal and frontal regions including the left anterior (P = 0.003) and posterior (P = 0.002) cingulum tracts, bilateral descending cingulum tracts (P < 0.001) and left uncinate tracts (P < 0.001) compared to controls. When compared with Alzheimer's disease, FTD was associated with greater reductions of FA in frontal brain regions, whereas no region in Alzheimer's disease showed greater reductions of FA when compared to FTD. In conclusion, the regional patterns of anisotropy reduction in FTD and Alzheimer's disease compared to controls suggest a characteristic distribution of white matter degradation in each disease. Moreover, the white matter degradation seems to be more prominent in FTD than in Alzheimer's disease. Taken together, the results suggest that white matter degradation measured with DTI may improve the diagnostic differentiation between FTD and Alzheimer's disease.
publisher	Oxford University Press
publishDate	2009
url	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2732263/
_version_	1611442846242439168

White matter damage in frontotemporal dementia and Alzheimer's disease measured by diffusion MRI

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