Coppen Emma M, van der Grond Jeroen, Hafkemeijer Anne, Rombouts Serge A R B, Roos Raymund A C
Department of Neurology, Leiden University Medical Center, PO Box 9600, 2300 RC Leiden, The Netherlands.
Department of Radiology, Leiden University Medical Center, PO Box 9600, 2300 RC Leiden, The Netherlands.
Neuroimage Clin. 2016 Oct 12;12:806-814. doi: 10.1016/j.nicl.2016.10.009. eCollection 2016.
Progressive subcortical changes are known to occur in Huntington's disease (HD), a hereditary neurodegenerative disorder. Less is known about the occurrence and cohesion of whole brain grey matter changes in HD.
We aimed to detect network integrity changes in grey matter structural covariance networks and examined relationships with clinical assessments.
Structural magnetic resonance imaging data of premanifest HD ( = 30), HD patients (n = 30) and controls (n = 30) was used to identify ten structural covariance networks based on a novel technique using the co-variation of grey matter with independent component analysis in FSL. Group differences were studied controlling for age and gender. To explore whether our approach is effective in examining grey matter changes, regional voxel-based analysis was additionally performed.
Premanifest HD and HD patients showed decreased network integrity in two networks compared to controls. One network included the caudate nucleus, precuneous and anterior cingulate cortex (in HD < 0.001, in pre-HD = 0.003). One other network contained the hippocampus, premotor, sensorimotor, and insular cortices (in HD < 0.001, in pre-HD = 0.023). Additionally, in HD patients only, decreased network integrity was observed in a network including the lingual gyrus, intracalcarine, cuneal, and lateral occipital cortices ( = 0.032). Changes in network integrity were significantly associated with scores of motor and neuropsychological assessments. In premanifest HD, voxel-based analyses showed pronounced volume loss in the basal ganglia, but less prominent in cortical regions.
Our results suggest that structural covariance might be a sensitive approach to reveal early grey matter changes, especially for premanifest HD.
进行性皮质下改变在亨廷顿舞蹈病（HD）中较为常见，HD是一种遗传性神经退行性疾病。关于HD患者全脑灰质变化的发生情况及相关性，目前了解较少。
我们旨在检测灰质结构协方差网络中的网络完整性变化，并研究其与临床评估的关系。
采用基于体素的形态学分析方法，对30例临床前期HD患者、30例HD患者及30名健康对照者进行全脑结构磁共振成像扫描，利用独立成分分析技术，提取基于灰质协方差的10个脑网络，分析组间差异，并控制年龄和性别因素。为探讨该方法检测灰质变化的有效性，同时进行基于体素的区域分析。
与健康对照相比，临床前期HD患者和HD患者在两个网络中表现出网络完整性下降。一个网络包括尾状核、楔前叶和前扣带回皮质（HD组P<0.001，临床前期HD组P=0.003）。另一个网络包含海马、运动前区、感觉运动区和岛叶皮质（HD组P<0.001，临床前期HD组P=0.023）。此外，仅在HD患者中，一个包括舌回、距状沟、楔叶和枕外侧皮质的网络出现网络完整性下降（P=0.032）。网络完整性变化与运动和神经心理学评估得分显著相关。在临床前期HD患者中，基于体素的分析显示基底神经节体积明显减少，但皮质区域变化不明显。
我们的结果表明，结构协方差可能是一种敏感的方法，可用于揭示早期灰质变化，特别是对于临床前期HD患者。
