title: Effects of changing from non-accelerated to accelerated MRI for follow-up in brain atrophy measurement.
abstract: Stable MR acquisition is essential for reliable measurement of brain atrophy in longitudinal studies. One attractive recent advance in MRI is to speed up acquisition using parallel imaging (e.g. reducing volumetric T1-weighted acquisition scan times from around 9 to 5 min). In some studies, a decision to change to an accelerated acquisition may have been deliberately taken, while in others repeat scans may occasionally be accidentally acquired with an accelerated acquisition. In ADNI, non-accelerated and accelerated scans were acquired in the same scanning session on each individual. We investigated the impact on brain atrophy as measured by k-means normalized boundary shift integral (KN-BSI) and deformation-based morphometry when changing from non-accelerated to accelerated MRI acquisitions over a 12-month interval using scans of 422 subjects from ADNI. KN-BSIs were calculated using both a non-accelerated baseline scan and non-accelerated 12-month scans (i.e. consistent acquisition), and a non-accelerated baseline scan and an accelerated 12-month scan (i.e. changed acquisition). Fluid-based non-rigid registration was also performed on those scans to estimate the brain atrophy rate. We found that the effect on KN-BSI and fluid-based non-rigid registration depended on the scanner manufacturer. For KN-BSI, in Philips and Siemens scanners, the change had very little impact on the measured atrophy rate (increase of 0.051% in Philips and -0.035% in Siemens from consistent acquisition to changed acquisition), whereas, in GE, the change caused a mean reduction of 0.65% in the brain atrophy rate. This is likely due to the difference in tissue contrast between gray matter and cerebrospinal fluid in the non-accelerated and accelerated scans in GE, which uses IR-FSPGR instead of MP-RAGE. For fluid-based non-rigid registration, the change caused a mean increase of 0.29% in the brain atrophy rate in the changed acquisition compared with consistent acquisition in Philips, whereas in GE and Siemens, the change had less impact on the mean atrophy rate (increase of 0.18% in GE and 0.049% in Siemens). Moving from non-accelerated baseline scans to accelerated scans for follow-up may have surprisingly little effect on computed atrophy rates depending on the exact sequence details and the scanner manufacturer; even accidentally inconsistent scans of this nature may still be useful.
authors.affiliation: Dementia Research Centre, Department of Neurodegenerative Disease, UCL Institute of Neurology, Queen Square, London WC1N 3BG, UK. Electronic address: kkleung@ucl.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Kelvin K
authors.initials: KK
authors.lastname: Leung
authors.affiliation: Dementia Research Centre, Department of Neurodegenerative Disease, UCL Institute of Neurology, Queen Square, London WC1N 3BG, UK.
authors.forename: Ian M
authors.initials: IM
authors.lastname: Malone
authors.affiliation: Dementia Research Centre, Department of Neurodegenerative Disease, UCL Institute of Neurology, Queen Square, London WC1N 3BG, UK; Centre for Medical Image Computing, University College London, WC1E 6BT London, UK.
authors.forename: Sebastien
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ourselin
authors.affiliation: Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, USA.
authors.forename: Jeffrey L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Gunter
authors.affiliation: Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, USA.
authors.forename: Matt A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Bernstein
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, USC Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, 2001 N. Soto Street, Los Angeles, CA 90033, USA; Department of Psychiatry, USC Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, 2001 N. Soto Street, Los Angeles, CA 90033, USA; Department of Radiology, USC Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, 2001 N. Soto Street, Los Angeles, CA 90033, USA; Department of Engineering, USC Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, 2001 N. Soto Street, Los Angeles, CA 90033, USA; Department of Pediatrics and Ophthalmology, USC Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, 2001 N. Soto Street, Los Angeles, CA 90033, USA; Imaging Genetics Center, USC Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, 2001 N. Soto Street, Los Angeles, CA 90033, USA.
authors.forename: Paul M
authors.initials: PM
authors.lastname: Thompson
authors.affiliation: Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, USA.
authors.forename: Clifford R
authors.initials: CR
authors.lastname: Jack
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, University of California San Francisco, CA, USA; Magnetic Resonance Imaging Unit, San Francisco Veterans Affairs Hospital San Francisco, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Michael W
authors.initials: MW
authors.lastname: Weiner
authors.affiliation: Dementia Research Centre, Department of Neurodegenerative Disease, UCL Institute of Neurology, Queen Square, London WC1N 3BG, UK.
authors.forename: Nick C
authors.initials: NC
authors.lastname: Fox
mesh_terms: D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000473:pathology; D001284:Atrophy; D001921:Brain / Q000473:pathology*; D060825:Cognitive Dysfunction / Q000473:pathology; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods*; D019636:Neurodegenerative Diseases / Q000473:pathology; D015203:Reproducibility of Results
keywords: Accelerated acquisition; Alzheimer's disease; Boundary shift integral; Brain atrophy; Non-accelerated acquisition