Back to Search
Start Over
Beyond the hippocampus: MRI volumetry confirms widespread limbic atrophy in AD
- Source :
- Neurology. 57:1669-1674
- Publication Year :
- 2001
- Publisher :
- Ovid Technologies (Wolters Kluwer Health), 2001.
-
Abstract
- To examine volumetric changes in limbic structures in patients with probable AD using planimetric measures on MRI.Limbic structures (i.e., hippocampus, amygdala, anterior thalamus, hypothalamus, mamillary bodies, basal forebrain, septal area, fornix, and cingulate, orbitofrontal, and parahippocampal cortices) were traced on 3D T1-weighted MR images of 40 patients with mild to moderate AD and 40 age-, sex-, and education-matched normal control subjects. Limbic volumes were compared between groups and the predictive ability was assessed.Overall, limbic structures showed significant atrophy in AD patients compared with normal control subjects. Differences (p0.05) were found in all limbic regions except the anterior cingulate cortex. The greatest percentage volumetric losses occurred in the septal area (34%), hippocampus (28%), amygdala (21%), parahippocampal cortex (21%), and posterior cingulate cortex (20%). Combining volumetric measures of amygdala and septal area distinguished patients with AD from normal control subjects with 93% accuracy.These results verify that system-wide limbic degeneration occurs in patients with AD. In addition, atrophy in selected limbic structures was used to distinguish patients with AD from normal elderly individuals with over 90% accuracy in this select clinical sample. The measures require further exploration in samples more representative of those seen by primary care physicians before their utility can be accurately assessed.
- Subjects :
- Male
Aging
Pathology
medicine.medical_specialty
Thalamus
Hippocampus
Amygdala
Degenerative disease
Atrophy
Limbic system
Alzheimer Disease
Limbic System
medicine
Humans
Aged
Basal forebrain
Fornix
Middle Aged
medicine.disease
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
medicine.anatomical_structure
nervous system
Female
Neurology (clinical)
Psychology
psychological phenomena and processes
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 1526632X and 00283878
- Volume :
- 57
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Neurology
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....24ef5edf69cbdb06b6dd2d02f3e5b5e5
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1212/wnl.57.9.1669