Tina Jeon1, Virendra
Mishra1, Myron Weiner2, Kristin Martin-Cook3,
Kimmo Hatanpaa4, Chan Foong4, Hao Huang1
1Advanced
Imaging Research Center, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center,
Dallas, TX, USA; 2Department of Psychiatry, University of Texas
Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, USA; 3Department of
Neurology, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, USA; 4Department
of Pathology, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX,
USA
Conventional VBM (voxel-based-morphometry) approaches delineate the abnormality at the voxel level. However, it is the information reflected from whole white matter tracts that have clinical importance. In this study, with no a priori information, this novel atlas-based approach has been used to examine fractional anisotropy (FA) of DTI of all 50 major white matter tracts at the tract level to detect white matter disruption in Alzheimer disease (AD). The proposed method is highly efficient, accurate, makes comprehensive examination of all major tracts and allows comparison of disruption level of these tracts.
Keywords