Longitudinal tracking of white matter connectivity in Huntington's disease: 30 month longitudinal data from the IMAGE-HD study
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1
Monash University, School of Psychology and Psychiatry, Australia
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2
Monash Medical Centre, Australia
Background: Disruption of structural integrity of specific neural circuits has been proposed to be one of the possible mechanisms underlying progressive deterioration in cognitive and motor function in Huntington’s disease (HD). The aim of this study was to use an unbiased longitudinal diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) analysis approach to track the microstructural integrity of white matter connections in pre-manifest (pre-HD) and symptomatic HD (symp-HD) individuals.
Methods: DTI data from 22 pre-HD, 19 symp-HD, and 22 healthy controls was collected at baseline, 18 months, and 30 months, from a cohort of participants in the IMAGE-HD study. DTI data were preprocessed to remove eddy-current and motion artefacts. For longitudinal analysis, we adopted a tensor-based registration pipeline that used full tensor information in DTI data to drive improved alignment over multiple time points and across groups. White matter tracts of interest were delineated by segmenting fractional anisotropy (FA) map of the group atlas using a locally adaptive segmentation algorithm. Body, genu, and splenium of corpus callosum fibre bundle were located by normalization in an atlas space. Microstructural integrity was assessed by statistical analysis of FA values.
Results: We observed selective loss in integrity of corpus callosum fibre bundle in both pre-HD close to onset and symp-HD groups. Symp-HD showed significant reduction of FA in all parts of corpus callosum, whereas in pre-HD close to onset FA reduction was topographically selective and localized in the splenium and body of corpus callosum.
Discussion: Given that the corpus callosum plays an important role in interhemispheric connectivity, our findings suggest for the first time, that there is a progressive disruption in cortico-cortical structural connectivity in HD.
Keywords:
Diffusion Tensor Imaging,
Huntington's disease,
Corpus Callosum,
fractional anisotropy,
connectivity
Conference:
ACNS-2013 Australasian Cognitive Neuroscience Society Conference, Clayton, Melbourne, Australia, 28 Nov - 1 Dec, 2013.
Presentation Type:
Poster
Topic:
Motor
Citation:
Poudel
G,
Dominguez
J,
Salmon
L,
Churchyard
A,
Chua
P,
Stout
J,
Egan
GF and
Georgiou-Karistianis
N
(2013). Longitudinal tracking of white matter connectivity in Huntington's disease: 30 month longitudinal data from the IMAGE-HD study.
Conference Abstract:
ACNS-2013 Australasian Cognitive Neuroscience Society Conference.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2013.212.00012
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Received:
15 Oct 2013;
Published Online:
25 Nov 2013.
*
Correspondence:
Dr. Govinda Poudel, Monash University, School of Psychology and Psychiatry, Clayton, Australia, govinda.poudel@monash.edu