title: Microstructural white matter changes in normal aging: a diffusion tensor imaging study with higher-order polynomial regression models.
abstract: Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) has already proven to be a valuable tool when investigating both global and regional microstructural white matter (WM) brain changes in the human aging process. Although subject to many criticisms, voxel-based analysis is currently one of the most common and preferred approaches in such DTI aging studies. In this context, voxel-based DTI analyses have assumed a 'linear' correlation when finding the significant brain regions that relate age with a particular diffusion measure of interest. Recent literature, however, has clearly demonstrated 'non-linear' relationships between age and diffusion metrics by using region-of-interest and tractography-based approaches. In this work, we incorporated polynomial regression models in the voxel-based DTI analysis framework to assess age-related changes in WM diffusion properties (fractional anisotropy and axial, transverse, and mean diffusivity) in a large cohort of 346 subjects (25 to 81 years old). Our novel approach clearly demonstrates that voxel-based DTI analyses can greatly benefit from incorporating higher-order regression models when investigating potential relationships between aging and diffusion properties.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biomedical Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan. tulu@ms36.hinet.net
authors.forename: Jung-Lung
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Hsu
authors.forename: Wim
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Van Hecke
authors.forename: Chyi-Huey
authors.initials: CH
authors.lastname: Bai
authors.forename: Cheng-Hui
authors.initials: CH
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Yuh-Feng
authors.initials: YF
authors.lastname: Tsai
authors.forename: Hou-Chang
authors.initials: HC
authors.lastname: Chiu
authors.forename: Fu-Shan
authors.initials: FS
authors.lastname: Jaw
authors.forename: Chien-Yeh
authors.initials: CY
authors.lastname: Hsu
authors.forename: Jyu-Gang
authors.initials: JG
authors.lastname: Leu
authors.forename: Wei-Hung
authors.initials: WH
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Alexander
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Leemans
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology*; D000465:Algorithms; D001921:Brain / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D038524:Diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015233:Models, Statistical; D012044:Regression Analysis