title: Joint assessment of structural, perfusion, and diffusion MRI in Alzheimer's disease and frontotemporal dementia.
abstract: Most MRI studies of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD) have assessed structural, perfusion and diffusion abnormalities separately while ignoring the relationships across imaging modalities. This paper aimed to assess brain gray (GM) and white matter (WM) abnormalities jointly to elucidate differences in abnormal MRI patterns between the diseases. Twenty AD, 20 FTD patients, and 21 healthy control subjects were imaged using a 4 Tesla MRI. GM loss and GM hypoperfusion were measured using high-resolution T1 and arterial spin labeling MRI (ASL-MRI). WM degradation was measured with diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). Using a new analytical approach, the study found greater WM degenerations in FTD than AD at mild abnormality levels. Furthermore, the GM loss and WM degeneration exceeded the reduced perfusion in FTD whereas, in AD, structural and functional damages were similar. Joint assessments of multimodal MRI have potential value to provide new imaging markers for improved differential diagnoses between FTD and AD.
authors.affiliation: Center for Imaging of Neurodegenerative Diseases, Department of Veterans Affairs San Francisco VA, Medical Center, 4150, Clement Street, San Francisco, CA 94121, USA.
authors.forename: Yu
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Norbert
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Schuff
authors.forename: Christopher
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Ching
authors.forename: Duygu
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Tosun
authors.forename: Wang
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Zhan
authors.forename: Marzieh
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Nezamzadeh
authors.forename: Howard J
authors.initials: HJ
authors.lastname: Rosen
authors.forename: Joel H
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Kramer
authors.forename: Maria Luisa
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Gorno-Tempini
authors.forename: Bruce L
authors.initials: BL
authors.lastname: Miller
authors.forename: Michael W
authors.initials: MW
authors.lastname: Weiner