title: Short-term white matter alterations in Alzheimer's disease characterized by diffusion tensor imaging.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To investigate whether there are any white matter changes in a 6-month follow-up of mild-moderate Alzheimer's patients using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI).
  
  
  METHODS
  We recruited 18 mild-moderate Alzheimer's disease patients and they underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) at recruitment and at 6-month follow-up. Diffusion MRI images were processed using DTI-ToolKit to create a population-based tensor template. This template was integrated with a voxel-wise and atlas-based analysis in FSL to determine the magnitude and location of change in diffusion metrics over the 6-month follow-up period.
  
  
  RESULTS
  There were significant widespread changes in diffusion metrics across the entire white matter skeleton (P < 0.001), 95% confidence interval (CI) difference in fractional anisotropy: -0.007 (-0.011, -0.002), mean diffusivity: 0.040 (0.023, 0.058), axial diffusivity: 0.015 (0.008, 0.022), radial diffusivity: 0.012 (0.006, 0.019), as well as regions of interest in the splenium and superior longitudinal fasciculus.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our findings show that diffusion metrics are altered in a 6-month follow-up period of mild-moderate Alzheimer's patients, supporting the potential of DTI metrics to act as sensitive biomarkers for disease progression even over a relatively short time interval, and the potential utility to be applied to clinical trials of putative disease-modifying therapies.
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia.|Melbourne Brain Centre, Royal Melbourne Hospital, Melbourne, Australia.|Murdoch Children's Research Institute, Melbourne, Australia.
authors.forename: Sila
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Genc
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia.|Melbourne Brain Centre, Royal Melbourne Hospital, Melbourne, Australia.
authors.forename: Christopher E
authors.initials: CE
authors.lastname: Steward
authors.affiliation: Melbourne Brain Centre, Royal Melbourne Hospital, Melbourne, Australia.|Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia.
authors.forename: Charles B
authors.initials: CB
authors.lastname: Malpas
authors.affiliation: Melbourne Brain Centre, Royal Melbourne Hospital, Melbourne, Australia.|Melbourne Neuropsychiatry Centre, Royal Melbourne Hospital, Melbourne, Australia.
authors.forename: Dennis
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Velakoulis
authors.affiliation: Melbourne Brain Centre, Royal Melbourne Hospital, Melbourne, Australia.|Department of Medicine, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia.
authors.forename: Terence J
authors.initials: TJ
authors.lastname: O'Brien
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia.|Department of Radiology, Royal Melbourne Hospital, Melbourne, Australia.
authors.forename: Patricia M
authors.initials: PM
authors.lastname: Desmond
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000465:Algorithms; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000473:pathology; D016880:Anisotropy; D015415:Biomarkers / Q000378:metabolism; D001921:Brain / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000473:pathology; D001931:Brain Mapping / Q000379:methods; D056324:Diffusion Tensor Imaging; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D066127:White Matter / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000473:pathology*
chemical_list: D015415:Biomarkers
keywords: Alzheimer's disease; biomarker; diffusion tensor imaging; longitudinal; unbiased template; white matter