GCS-fMRI, Koelliker Hospital and Department of Psychology, University of Turin, Turin, Italy.
FOCUS Laboratory, Department of Psychology, University of Turin, Via Verdi 10, 10124, Turin, Italy.
Sci Rep. 2024 Nov 2;14(1):26381. doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-78132-9.
In recent years, the glymphatic system has received increasing attention due to its possible implications in biological mechanisms associated with neurodegeneration. In the field of human brain mapping, this led to the development of diffusion tensor image analysis along the perivascular space (DTI-ALPS) index. While this index has been repeatedly used to investigate possible differences between neurodegenerative disorders and healthy controls, a comprehensive evaluation of its stability across multiple measurements and different disorders is still missing. In this study, we perform a Bayesian meta-analysis aiming to assess the consistency of the DTI-ALPS results previously reported for 12 studies on Parkinson's disease and 11 studies on Alzheimer's disease. We also evaluated if the measured value of the DTI-ALPS index can quantitatively inform the diagnostic process, allowing disambiguation between these two disorders. Our results, expressed in terms of Bayes' Factor values, confirmed that the DTI-ALPS index is consistent in measuring the different functioning of the glymphatic system between healthy subjects and patients for both Parkinson's disease (Log10(BF10) = 30) and Alzheimer's disease (Log10(BF10) = 10). Moreover, we showed that the DTI-ALPS can be used to compare these two disorders directly, therefore providing a first proof of concept supporting the reliability of taking into consideration this neuroimaging measurement in the diagnostic process. Our study underscores the potential of the DTI-ALPS index in advancing our understanding of neurodegenerative pathologies and enhancing clinical diagnostics.
近年来，由于其在与神经退行性变相关的生物学机制中的潜在意义，糖质系统受到了越来越多的关注。在人类大脑图谱领域，这导致了沿血管周围空间的扩散张量图像分析（DTI-ALPS）指数的发展。虽然该指数已被反复用于研究神经退行性疾病与健康对照组之间可能存在的差异，但仍缺乏对其在多次测量和不同疾病中的稳定性的全面评估。在这项研究中，我们进行了贝叶斯荟萃分析，旨在评估先前针对 12 项帕金森病研究和 11 项阿尔茨海默病研究报告的 DTI-ALPS 结果的一致性。我们还评估了 DTI-ALPS 指数的测量值是否可以定量地为诊断过程提供信息，从而区分这两种疾病。我们的结果以贝叶斯因子值的形式表示，证实 DTI-ALPS 指数在测量健康受试者和患者之间不同的糖质系统功能方面是一致的，适用于帕金森病（Log10（BF10）= 30）和阿尔茨海默病（Log10（BF10）= 10）。此外，我们表明，DTI-ALPS 可用于直接比较这两种疾病，因此首次提供了一个概念验证，支持在诊断过程中考虑这种神经影像学测量的可靠性。我们的研究强调了 DTI-ALPS 指数在深入了解神经退行性病变和增强临床诊断方面的潜力。
