AUTHOR=Lou Baohui , Jiang Yuwei , Li Chunmei , Wu Pu-Yeh , Li Shuhua , Qin Bin , Chen Haibo , Wang Rui , Wu Bing , Chen Min 

TITLE=Quantitative Analysis of Synthetic Magnetic Resonance Imaging in Alzheimer’s Disease

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience

VOLUME=Volume 13 - 2021

YEAR=2021

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/aging-neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnagi.2021.638731

DOI=10.3389/fnagi.2021.638731

ISSN=1663-4365

ABSTRACT=Objectives The purpose of this study was to evaluate the feasibility and whether synthetic MRI can benefit diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease (AD).
Materials and Methods Eighteen patients and eighteen age-matched normal controls (NCs) underwent MR examination. The mini-mental state examination (MMSE) scores were obtained from all patients. The whole brain volumetric characteristics, T1, T2 and PD values of different cortical and subcortical regions were obtained. The volumetric characteristics and brain regional relaxation values between AD patients and NCs were compared using independent-samples t-test. The correlations between these quantitative parameters and MMSE score were assessed by the Pearson correlation.
Results The volume of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) was significantly higher in AD patients than in NCs (p < 0.05), while brain parenchymal volume (BPV) and the ratio of brain parenchymal volume to intracranial volume (BPV/ICV) was on the contrary (p < 0.05), using a single-tailed t test. T1 values of bilateral insula cortex and T2 values of bilateral hippocampus and right insula cortex were significantly higher in AD patients than in NCs, but T1 values of left caudate showed a reverse trend (p < 0.05). As the MMSE score decreased, the volume of CSF and T1 values of bilateral insula cortex as well as T2 values of bilateral hippocampus decreased, while the BPV/ICV increased (p < 0.05).
Conclusion Synthetic MRI not only provides more information to differentiate AD patients from normal controls, but also reflects the disease severity of AD.