Clinical and biological underpinnings of longitudinal atrophy pattern progression in Alzheimer's disease.

Background: Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has recently enabled to identify four distinct Alzheimer's disease (AD) subtypes: hippocampal sparing (HpSp), typical AD (tAD), limbic predominant (Lp), and minimal atrophy (MinAtr). To date, however, the natural history of these subtypes, especially regarding the presence of subjects switching to other MRI patterns and their clinical and biological differences, remains poorly understood.

Objective: To investigate the clinical and biological underpinnings of longitudinal atrophy pattern progression in AD.

Compressed sensing (CS) MP2RAGE versus standard MPRAGE: A comparison of derived brain volume measurements.

Purpose: T1 Magnetization Prepared Two Rapid Acquisition Gradient Echo (MP2RAGE) with compress sensing (CS) has been proposed as an improvement of the standard MPRAGE sequence with multiple advantages including reduced acquisition time needed to provide a quantitative 3D anatomical image coupled with T1-map. Here we investigated the agreement between FreeSurfer-derived volume measurements obtained from MPRAGE and CS MP2RAGE acquisitions.

Methods: MPRAGE and CS MP2RAGE images of 37 subjects (14 patients with neurodegenerative disorders and 23 healthy controls) were acquired on a 3 T MR scanner and grey matter volumes were extracted using standard FreeSurfer parcellation.

F-FDG-PET correlates of aging and disease course in ALS as revealed by distinct PVC approaches.

Purpose: The partial volume effect (PVE) complicates PET studies of neurodegenerative diseases, since a decreased F-FDG retention might be influenced by atrophy-related changes of cortical regions. Multiple partial volume correction (PVC) methods have been therefore developed, but their application in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is still rare. Additionally, even if metabolic changes have been established in ALS, no study yet has investigated how these may be influenced by aging and disease course.

CSF oligoclonal bands and normal appearing white matter periventricular damage in patients with clinically isolated syndrome suggestive of MS.

Background: A periventricular gradient of normal appearing white matter (NAWM) damage has been described in multiple sclerosis (MS), including subjects with clinically isolated syndrome (CIS). The pathological mechanisms underlying this gradient is not currently understood.

Methods: 34 CIS subjects were enrolled and underwent cerebrospinal fluid oligo-clonal bands (CSF-OCB) evaluation.