Application of automated fiber-tract quantification technology in the early stage of Alzheimer's disease

In recent years, the use of diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) technology to study the changes of brain white matter fibers has become a hot spot. This technology is the only method that can display the fiber structure under non-invasive conditions, and can show the fine structure of the lesion on the white matter. Most previous studies only detect the average index parameter of each fiber bundle, and some pathological changes of Alzheimer's disease may occur in the local area of the fiber bundle. This study focuses on analyzing which fiber bundles are involved in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease. In this study, we used automated fiber-tract quantification (AFQ) technology to comprehensively study the white matter fiber damage in 29 patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), the early stage of Alzheimer's disease and 34 normal controls, and divided each fiber bundle into equal parts 100 segments, compare the difference of the index values between the mild cognitive impairment (MCI) group and the normal elderly (HC) control group. We found significant differences in the bilateral anterior thalamic radiation (ATR), cingulum cingulate (CGC), intefior fronto-occiptal fasciculus (IFOF), inferior longitudinal fasciculus (ILF), etc. in patients with mild cognitive impairment. At the same time, partial FA (partial anisotropy index) decreased in some fiber tracts, and as the same time MD (Mean Diffusion) increases. This study proves that compared with the normal control group, the integrity of certain segments of certain fiber bundles in the MCI group is damaged to a certain extent, and it may provide new information for the white matter degeneration of mild cognitive impairment and its relationship with Alzheimer's disease.