White Matter Changes in Alzheimer’s Disease Revealed by Diffusion Tensor Imaging with TBSS

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a progressive, neurodegenerative disorder characterized by impairments in multiple cognitive domains and it is hard to diagnose in early stage because it’s not easy to recognize and develop slowly. In this study, we try to evaluate the difference of white matter between AD and health volunteers using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and try to provide some evidence for diagnose AD in early stage. Twelve elderly Chinese patients with AD and twelve healthy volunteers were recruited and underwent DTI. The raw diffusion data were dealt with the toolkit of FSL image post-processing. Fractional anisotrogy (FA) data were then carried out by using tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS). The result showed that the FA of cingulum, hippocampus, corticospinal tract, and inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus significantly reduced in AD patients than that of volunteers. This indicated that the integrity of white matter tracts in these regions with AD was disturbed. On the other hand, the FA of other encephalic regions had no discrepancy compared with that of healthy volunteers. FA values were found reduced significantly in AD patients, especially in the posterior of the brain. These findings may provide image methods to diagnose patients with early stage of AD.

The clinical,radiological,and surgical characteristics of anterior perforated substance glioma:a retrospective study

Background To explore the clinical,radiological,and surgical characteristics of anterior perforated substance(APS)gliomas.Methods Twenty patients with APS glioma who were treated with surgery between March 2019 and January 2022 from Tiantan hospital were retrospectively reviewed.The clinical,histological and radiological data were collected.Results Twenty patients,including 7 males(55%)and 13 females(45%),with a mean age at diagnosis of 37.9 years(range,28-53 years)underwent operative intervention for APS.Headaches and dizziness were the most common preoperative symptoms in the majority patients(14,70%).Based on radiological features of MRI,the APS was classified into two subtypes,type A and type B.Seven patients(40%)in type A indicated a clear tumor margin,while 13 patients(60%)in type B showed an ill-defined margin.The surgical approach including frontal,temporal,and coronal frontal incisions for type A and type B tumors,respectively.Three patients in type A received total resection,while one patient in type B were total resected.Pathologically,12 cases(60%,12/20)were diagnosed as astrocytoma and 8 cases(20%,8/20)were oligodendroglioma.Meanwhile,17 cases(85%,17/20)had MGMT promotor methylation.Conclusion In this study,we performed the first systematic research of patients with APS glioma.Most of patients with APS presented headaches and dizziness symptoms.The APS glioma was further divided into two major radiological subtypes with relevant different surgical approaches.The APS glioma in type A were more likely to receive total resection.