Study of brain morphology change in Alzheimer’s disease and amnestic mild cognitive impairment compared with normal controls

• 作者: Cece Yang Feng Shi Hua Xu Huanqing Yang Jinghua Wang Qingfeng Li Shifu Xiao Tao Wang Wei Li Weixiong Jiang Xia Li Yan Jin Yina Wu
• 来源期刊: 综合精神医学(英文)
• 学科: 医学
• 关键词: BRAIN morphology CHANGE amnestic MILD COGNITIVE IMPAIRMENT compared aMCI NC
• 年，卷（期）: 2019,（2）
• 页码范围: 75-83
• 页数: 9页
• 分类号: R

摘要

Background With an aggravated social ageing level, the number of patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) is gradually increasing, and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is considered to be an early form of Alzheimer's disease. How to distinguish diseases in the early stage for the purposes of early diagnosis and treatment is an important topic. Aims The purpose of our study was to investigate the differences in brain cortical thickness and surface area among elderly patients with AD, elderly patients with amnestic MCI (aMCI) and normal controls (NC). Methods 20 AD patients, 21 aMCIs and 25 NC were recruited in the study. FreeSurfer software was used to calculate cortical thickness and surface area among groups. Results The patients with AD had less cortical thickness both in the left and right hemisphere in 17 of the 36 brain regions examined than the patients with aMCI or NC. The patients with AD also had smaller cerebral surface area both in the left and right hemisphere in 3 of the 36 brain regions examined than the patients with aMCI or NC. Compared with the NC, the patients with aMCI only had slight atrophy in the inferior parietal lobe of the left hemisphere, and no significant difference was found. Conclusion AD, as well as aMCI (to a lesser extent), is associated with reduced cortical thickness and surface area in a few brain regions associated with cognitive impairment. These results suggest that cortical thickness and surface area could be used for early detection of AD.