Abstract #2668

Gorani F, Pendl B, Schmidt R, Ropele S, Enzinger C, Fazekas F, Seewann A

Recent magnetization transfer ratio (MTR) studies in Alzheimers disease suggest that the MTR is sensitive to pathology related tissue damage. We now have performed a longitudinal MTR study in 28 Alzheimer patients to investigate the evolution of whole brain MTR parameters and deep grey matter MTR and their association with cognition. While deep grey matter did not shown any significant changes, all whole brain histogram parameters documented disease progression even on a time scale of 6 months. No significant correlations between specific cognitive tests and histogram parameters were found. However, the MTR metrics at baseline were predictive of subsequent changes in cognitive performance.