TRACTOGRAPHY OF THE BASAL GANGLIA IN PATIENTS WITH ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE

Abstract

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Background. Although there are many studies of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) focused on temporal and cortical atrophy, basal ganglia have received only little attention. Aim. Our aim was to visualise neural tracts of the basal ganglia and measure their parameters in patients with AD and healthy controls. Material and Methods. 10 patients with AD and 10 healthy controls underwent MRI. Neural tracts were reconstructed in caudate, putamen and pallidum using DSI Studio Following parameters were obtained: number of tracts (NT), tract length (TL), tract volume (TV), generalized fractional anisotropy (GFA) and normalized quantitative anisotropy (NQA). Results were analysed using Statistica 10.0 software. Results and Discussion. Based on statistical analysis we obtained following statistically significant (p<0.05) results. There was seen decrease of NT in right caudate in patients with AD. On the contrary, in right and left putamen was observed an increase in NT and NQA in patients with AD. Similarly, in left pallidum was observed an increase of NQA and in right pallidum an increase of NT and NQA in patients with AD. Conclusions. Increase of NQA represents higher density of neural tracts in putamen and pallidum in patients with AD suggesting a compensatory mechanism. Acknowledgements. Supported by the grants of Charles University PROGRES Q35 and Q16 and SVV 260388/SVV/2018.