The correlation of cognitive decline with frontotemporal dementia induced annualized gray matter loss using diffeomorphic morphometry.
This study uses large deformation medical image registration to analyze, in a disease-specific normalized space, the annual rate of gray matter atrophy caused by frontotemporal dementia (FTD) and its correlation with cognitive decline. The analysis consists of three parts. First, a labeled structural MRI atlas is deformed into the shape of an average FTD brain. Second, annualized FTD-related atrophy of gray matter structures is estimated for each patient in the database. Third, the group-wise annualized atrophy rate caused by FTD is correlated, for each gray matter voxel, with declining performance on cognitive tests. This study gives insight into the relationship between FTD-related progressive cortical atrophy and loss in cognitive function.
Avants
Brian
B
University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia, 19104-6389, USA. avants@grasp.cis.upenn.edu
Grossman
Murray
M
Gee
James C
JC
D000368:Aged; D001284:Atrophy / Q000473:pathology / Q000523:psychology; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000473:pathology*; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000209:etiology* / Q000473:pathology; D018450:Disease Progression; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008875:Middle Aged; D020774:Pick Disease of the Brain / Q000473:pathology* / Q000523:psychology*