Study of white matter tractography in patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment / 实用放射学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate subtle structural changes of white matter in patients with amnestic mild cognitive impair-ment (aMCI)using a tractography-based method.Methods Thirty patients with clinical diagnosis of aMCI and thirty-one cases of normal control(NC)and undergone diffusion tensor imaging.Cingulum (CG),corpus callosum (CC),uncinate fasciculus (UNC) and inferior occipitofrontal fasciculus (IOFF)were reconstructed,and fractional anisotrophy (FA)values were measured along these tracts using dTV II software.Differences of white matter tracts’FA values were explored between aMCI group and NC group.In addition,correlation analyses were also done between FA values and the MMSE(mini-mental state examination)scores in the aMCI patients.Results ① aMCI patients exhibited significant lower FA values in the bilateral CG,bilateral UNC and CC than NC group. Although there were no statistically significant differences,aMCI patients exhibited lower FA values than NC group in the left IOFF.② The FA values of right CG were positively correlated with MMSE scores.Conclusion Abnormal changes of FA values in CG,UNC and CC of aMCI patients suggest that subtle damages of white matter tracts related to memory exist in the prodromal phase of Alzheimer’s disease (AD).Fiber tractography has high sensitivity in detecting early damages of white matter.