title: Prediction of Alzheimer's disease using individual structural connectivity networks.
abstract: Alzheimer's disease (AD) progressively degrades the brain's gray and white matter. Changes in white matter reflect changes in the brain's structural connectivity pattern. Here, we established individual structural connectivity networks (ISCNs) to distinguish predementia and dementia AD from healthy aging in individual scans. Diffusion tractography was used to construct ISCNs with a fully automated procedure for 21 healthy control subjects (HC), 23 patients with mild cognitive impairment and conversion to AD dementia within 3 years (AD-MCI), and 17 patients with mild AD dementia. Three typical pattern classifiers were used for AD prediction. Patients with AD and AD-MCI were separated from HC with accuracies greater than 95% and 90%, respectively, irrespective of prediction approach and specific fiber properties. Most informative connections involved medial prefrontal, posterior parietal, and insular cortex. Patients with mild AD were separated from those with AD-MCI with an accuracy of approximately 85%. Our finding provides evidence that ISCNs are sensitive to the impact of earliest stages of AD. ISCNs may be useful as a white matter-based imaging biomarker to distinguish healthy aging from AD.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuroradiology of Klinikum rechts der Isar, Technische Universität München, Ismaningerstrasse 22, 81675 Munich, Germany.
authors.forename: Junming
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Shao
authors.forename: Nicholas
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Myers
authors.forename: Qinli
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Jing
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Feng
authors.forename: Claudia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Plant
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Böhm
authors.forename: Hans
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Förstl
authors.forename: Alexander
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kurz
authors.forename: Claus
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Zimmer
authors.forename: Chun
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Meng
authors.forename: Valentin
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Riedl
authors.forename: Afra
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Wohlschläger
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Sorg
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000175:diagnosis*; D016880:Anisotropy; D001921:Brain / Q000473:pathology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D060825:Cognitive Dysfunction / Q000175:diagnosis*; D056324:Diffusion Tensor Imaging; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality; D006801:Humans; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009412:Nerve Fibers / Q000473:pathology; D009434:Neural Pathways / Q000473:pathology*; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests