Differential atrophy along the longitudinal hippocampal axis in
Alzheimer's disease
Abstract
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder
that primarily affects the hippocampus. Since hippocampal studies have
highlighted a differential subregional regulation along its longitudinal
axis, a more detailed analysis addressing subregional changes along the
longitudinal hippocampal axis has the potential to provide new relevant
biomarkers. This study included structural brain MRI data of 583
participants from the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative
(ADNI). Cognitively normal (CN) subjects, mild cognitively impaired
(MCI) subjects and AD patients were conveniently selected considering
the age- and sex-match between clinical groups. Structural MRI
acquisitions were pre-processed and analysed with a new longitudinal
axis segmentation method, dividing the hippocampus in three subdivisions
(anterior, intermediate, and posterior). When normalizing the volume of
hippocampal sub-divisions to total hippocampus, the posterior
hippocampus negatively correlates with age only in CN subjects (r =
-0.31). The longitudinal ratio of hippocampal atrophy (anterior
sub-division divided by the posterior one) shows a significant increase
with age only in CN (r = 0.25). Overall, in AD the posterior hippocampus
is predominantly atrophied early on. Consequently, the
anterior/posterior hippocampal ratio is an AD differentiating metric at
early disease stages with potential for diagnostic and prognostic
applications.