title: The Uncinate Fasciculus as a Predictor of Conversion from Amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment to Alzheimer Disease.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) is associated with the risk of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Although diffusion tensor imaging (DTI)-based fractional anisotropy (FA) analyses have been used to evaluate white matter changes in patients with AD, it remains unknown how FA values change during the conversion of aMCI to AD. This study aimed to elucidate the prediction of conversion to AD and cognitive decline by FA values in uncinate fasciculus (UF) in aMCI patients.
  
  
  METHODS
  Twenty-two aMCI patients were evaluated for their UF FA values by a tractography-based method with DTI and cognitive performance by neuropsychological testing at baseline and after a 3-year follow-up. Patients were divided into 2 groups after 3 years: 14 aMCI-stable (aMCI-aMCI) and 8 AD-conversion (aMCI-AD).
  
  
  RESULTS
  At baseline, FA values in the right UF were significantly lower in the aMCI-AD group than in the aMCI-aMCI group. These values also showed significant correlations with the neuropsychological scores after a 3-year follow-up. The area under the curve of the receiver operation characteristic curves for predicting conversion to AD was .813.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  These results suggested that FA values in the right UF might be an effective predictor of conversion of aMCI to AD.
authors.affiliation: Human Brain Research Center, Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto, Japan.
authors.forename: Kazuko
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Hiyoshi-Taniguchi
authors.affiliation: Human Brain Research Center, Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto, Japan.
authors.forename: Naoya
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Oishi
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto, Japan.
authors.forename: Chihiro
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Namiki
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto, Japan.
authors.forename: Jun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Miyata
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto, Japan.
authors.forename: Toshiya
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Murai
authors.affiliation: Advanced Brain Signal Processing, RIKEN Brain Science Institute, Saitama, Japan.
authors.forename: Andrzej
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Cichocki
authors.affiliation: Systems Research Institute, Polish Academy of Science, Poland.
authors.forename: Hidenao
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Fukuyama
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000209:etiology / Q000473:pathology*; D000647:Amnesia / Q000150:complications / Q000473:pathology*; D060825:Cognitive Dysfunction / Q000150:complications / Q000473:pathology*; D056324:Diffusion Tensor Imaging; D018450:Disease Progression; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007090:Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D062706:Prodromal Symptoms; D011379:Prognosis; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D066127:White Matter / Q000473:pathology*
keywords: AD; DTI; amnestic mild cognitive impairment; fractional anisotropy; uncinate fasciculus