Keywords: Structural Connectivity, Brain Connectivity, Hippocampus, APOE4, Streamlines
Motivation: Microstructural changes within the hippocampus, which may occur well before cognitive decline in Alzheimer’s disease (AD), could serve as an early diagnosis biomarker in pre-symptomatic subjects.
Goal(s): We assessed differences in intra-hippocampal connectivity between cognitively normal carriers and non-carriers of the APOE4 allele, a genetic risk factor for AD.
Approach: We segmented the hippocampus into 12 subfields per hemisphere and performed fiber tractography on multi-shell diffusion tensor imaging data to determine the number of streamlines connecting each subfield pair.
Results: 22 subfield pairs had a significantly lower connectivity in the APOE4 carrier group compared to the APOE4 non-carrier group.
Impact: Our analysis shows differences in intra-hippocampal connectivity between cognitively normal subjects with and without a genetic risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease, which could potentially serve as a more definitive biomarker for its early diagnosis and treatment in pre-symptomatic subjects.
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