This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Reply to article  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citation map  • Citing articles on HighWire  • Citing articles on Web of Science (12)  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in this journal  Topic Collections  • Alzheimer Disease  • Cognitive Disorders  • Radiologic Imaging  • Magnetic Resonance Imaging  • Alert me on articles by topic  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Liana G. Apostolova, MD; Calen A. Steiner, BS; Gohar G. Akopyan, BS; Rebecca A. Dutton, BS; Kiralee M. Hayashi, BS; Arthur W. Toga, PhD; Jeffrey L. Cummings, MD; Paul M. Thompson, PhD

Arch Neurol. 2007;64(10):1489-1495.

Background  Alzheimer disease (AD) is the most common form of dementia worldwide. Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is the recent terminology for patients with cognitive deficiencies in the absence of functional decline. Most patients with MCI harbor the pathologic changes of AD and demonstrate transition to dementia at a rate of 10% to 15% per year. Patients with AD and MCI experience progressive brain atrophy.

Objective  To analyze the structural magnetic resonance imaging data for 24 patients with amnestic MCI and 25 patients with mild AD using an advanced 3-dimensional cortical mapping technique.

Design  Cross-sectional cohort design.

Patients/Methods  We analyzed the structural magnetic resonance imaging data of 24 amnestic MCI (mean MMSE, 28.1; SD, 1.7) and 25 mild AD patients (all MMSE scores, >18; mean MMSE, 23.7; SD, 2.9) using an advanced 3-dimensional cortical mapping technique.

Results  We observed significantly greater cortical atrophy in patients with mild AD. The entorhinal cortex, right more than left lateral temporal cortex, right parietal cortex, and bilateral precuneus showed 15% more atrophy and the remainder of the cortex primarily exhibited 10% to 15% more atrophy in patients with mild AD than in patients with amnestic MCI.

Conclusion  There are striking cortical differences between mild AD and the immediately preceding cognitive state of amnestic MCI. Cortical areas affected earlier in the disease process are more severely affected than those that are affected late. Our method may prove to be a reliable in vivo disease-tracking technique that can also be used for evaluating disease-modifying therapies in the future.

Author Affiliations: Departments of Neurology (Drs Apostolova, Toga, Cummings, and Thompson, Mr Steiner, and Ms Akopyan), Psychiatry (Dr Cummings), and Laboratory of Neuroimaging (Drs Apostolova, Toga, and Thompson and Mss Dutton and Hayashi), David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California at Los Angeles.

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?

THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES

The cortical signature of prodromal AD: Regional thinning predicts mild AD dementia
Bakkour et al.
Neurology 2009;72:1048-1055.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT  

Thin skin: The cortical signature of prodromal AD?
Rottenberg
Neurology 2009;72:1038-1039.
FULL TEXT  

The Cortical Signature of Alzheimer's Disease: Regionally Specific Cortical Thinning Relates to Symptom Severity in Very Mild to Mild AD Dementia and is Detectable in Asymptomatic Amyloid-Positive Individuals
Dickerson et al.
Cereb Cortex 2009;19:497-510.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT  

Computational anatomical methods as applied to ageing and dementia
THOMPSON and APOSTOLOVA
Br. J. Radiol. 2007;80:S78-S91.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT