title: Diagnostic Potential of Pulsed Arterial Spin Labeling in Alzheimer's Disease.
abstract: Alzheimers disease (AD) is the most common cause of dementia. Although the underlying pathology is still not completely understood, several diagnostic methods are available. Frequently, the most accurate methods are also the most invasive. The present work investigates the diagnostic potential of Pulsed Arterial Spin Labeling (PASL) for AD: a non-invasive, MRI-based technique for the quantification of regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF). In particular, we propose a pilot computer aided diagnostic (CAD) procedure able to discriminate between healthy and diseased subjects, and at the same time, providing visual informative results. This method encompasses the creation of a healthy model, the computation of a voxel-wise likelihood function as comparison between the healthy model and the subject under examination, and the correction of the likelihood function via prior distributions. The discriminant analysis is carried out to maximize the accuracy of the classification. The algorithm has been trained on a dataset of 81 subjects and achieved a sensitivity of 0.750 and a specificity of 0.875. Moreover, in accordance with the current pathological knowledge, the parietal lobe, and limbic system are shown to be the main discriminant factors.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuroradiology, Klinikum rechts der Isar, Technische Universität München Munich, Germany.
authors.forename: Stefano
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Trebeschi
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuroradiology, Klinikum rechts der Isar, Technische Universität München Munich, Germany.
authors.forename: Isabelle
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Riederer
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuroradiology, Klinikum rechts der Isar, Technische Universität München Munich, Germany.
authors.forename: Christine
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Preibisch
authors.affiliation: Department of Nuclear Medicine, Klinikum rechts der Isar, Technische Universität MünchenMunich, Germany; Department of Nuclear Medicine, Ulm UniversityUlm, Germany.
authors.forename: Karl P
authors.initials: KP
authors.lastname: Bohn
authors.affiliation: Department of Nuclear Medicine, Klinikum rechts der Isar, Technische Universität MünchenMunich, Germany; TUM Neuroimaging Center, Klinikum rechts der Isar, Technische Universität MünchenMunich, Germany.
authors.forename: Stefan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Förster
authors.affiliation: Departments of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Klinikum rechts der Isar, Technische Universität MünchenMunich, Germany; Department of Psychiatry, University Hospital of Rion, University of PatrasPatras, Greece.
authors.forename: Panagiotis
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Alexopoulos
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuroradiology, Klinikum rechts der Isar, Technische Universität München Munich, Germany.
authors.forename: Claus
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Zimmer
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuroradiology, Klinikum rechts der Isar, Technische Universität München Munich, Germany.
authors.forename: Jan S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Kirschke
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuroradiology, Klinikum rechts der Isar, Technische Universität München Munich, Germany.
authors.forename: Alexander
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Valentinitsch
keywords: Alzheimer's disease; MRI; PASL; diagnosis; neuroimaging