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T 1ρ MRI in Alzheimer's Disease: Detection of Pathological Changes in Medial Temporal Lobe
Author(s) -
Haris Mohammad,
Singh Anup,
Cai Kejia,
McArdle Erin,
Fenty Matthew,
Davatzikos Christos,
Trojanowski John Q.,
Melhem Elias R.,
Clark Christopher M.,
Borthakur Arijitt
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
journal of neuroimaging
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 64
eISSN - 1552-6569
pISSN - 1051-2284
DOI - 10.1111/j.1552-6569.2010.00467.x
Subject(s) - medicine , magnetic resonance imaging , temporal lobe , white matter , pathological , nuclear medicine , alzheimer's disease , radiology , disease , epilepsy , psychiatry
BACKGROUND The need of an early and noninvasive diagnosis of AD requires the development of imaging‐based techniques. As an alternative, the magnetic resonance image (MRI) relaxation time constant ( T 1ρ ) was measured in brains of Alzheimer's disease (AD), mild‐cognitive impairment (MCI), and age‐matched controls in order to determine whether T 1ρ values correlated with the neurological diagnosis.METHODS MRI was performed on AD ( n = 48), MCI ( n = 45), and age‐matched control ( n = 41), on a 1.5 Tesla Siemens clinical MRI scanner. T 1ρ maps were generated by fitting each pixel's intensity as a function of the duration of the spin‐lock pulse. T 1ρ values were calculated from the gray matter (GM) and white matter (WM) of medial temporal lobe (MTL).RESULTS GM and WM T 1ρ values were 87.5 ± 1.2 ms and 80.5 ± 1.4 ms, respectively, in controls, 90.9 ± 1.3 ms and 84.1 ± 1.7 ms in MCI, and 91.9 ± .8 ms and 88.3 ± 1.3 ms in AD cohorts. Compared to control, AD patients showed 9% increased WM T 1ρ and 5% increased GM T 1ρ . Compared to control, MCI individuals showed 4% increased T 1ρ both in WM and GM. A 5% increased T 1ρ was found in WM of AD over MCI.CONCLUSION The increased T 1ρ in WM and GM of MTL in AD may be associated with the pathological changes that are not evident on conventional MRI.