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- Title
Volumetric changes of thalamic nuclei in Alzheimer's disease continuum.
- Authors
Harı, Emre; Kurt, Elif; Bayram, Ali; Ulaşoğlu-Yıldız, Çiğdem; Acar, Burak; Demiralp, Tamer; Gürvit, Hakan
- Abstract
Objective: It is known that neurofibrillary tangles associated with neuronal loss in Alzheimer's disease (AD) start from the transentorhinal cortex and spread to the paralimbic structures. Although the hippocampus is at the center of AD studies, memory is processed in a large neurocognitive network with subcortical components, including the thalamus. For this purpose, it was aimed to examine the detailed volumetric changes of thalamic nuclei at different scales in AD. Methods: MRI data of participants with a diagnosis of 20 AD dementia (ADD), 30 mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and 30 subjective cognitive impairment (SCI), who did not differ in terms of age, education and gender, were included. The segmentation process was carried out individually with FreeSurfer software. The thalamus was divided into sub-nuclei groups as anterior, medial, posterior, lateral and intralaminar nuclei, and volume values were obtained. The volumes of the thalamic nuclei in both hemispheres were averaged and normalized using the intracranial volume. In order to examine the changes in volumes between groups, ANCOVA analysis was performed by defining age, education and gender as covariates. Bonferroni correction was applied to results for multiple comparison correction. Results: Statistically significant volume reduction was detected only in the medial group among the groups. When the medial group was examined in detail, volume reduction was detected in the magnocellular part of the mediodorsal nucleus (MDm). In post-hoc analyses, volume decreases were detected in MCI and ADD compared to SCI in MDm. No statistically significant difference was found between ADD and MCI groups. Conclusion: MDmc, which is associated with memory in the literature, is particularly affected in the MCI stage of the disease. This finding has been interpreted to have the potential for a biomarker for the prodromal stage of the AD.
- Subjects
THALAMIC nuclei; ALZHEIMER'S disease; NEUROFIBRILLARY tangles; MILD cognitive impairment; BONFERRONI correction; MULTIPLE comparisons (Statistics)
- Publication
Anatomy: International Journal of Experimental & Clinical Anatomy, 2022, Vol 16, p276
- ISSN
1307-8798
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.2399/ana.22.003s