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Published in: Journal of Neurology 3/2024

Open Access 27-11-2023 | Frontotemporal Dementia | Original Communication

Cortical thickness modeling and variability in Alzheimer’s disease and frontotemporal dementia

Authors: Agnès Pérez-Millan, Sergi Borrego-Écija, Neus Falgàs, Jordi Juncà-Parella, Beatriz Bosch, Adrià Tort-Merino, Anna Antonell, Nuria Bargalló, Lorena Rami, Mircea Balasa, Albert Lladó, Roser Sala-Llonch, Raquel Sánchez-Valle

Published in: Journal of Neurology | Issue 3/2024

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Abstract

Background and objective

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD) show different patterns of cortical thickness (CTh) loss compared with healthy controls (HC), even though there is relevant heterogeneity between individuals suffering from each of these diseases. Thus, we developed CTh models to study individual variability in AD, FTD, and HC.

Methods

We used the baseline CTh measures of 379 participants obtained from the structural MRI processed with FreeSurfer. A total of 169 AD patients (63 ± 9 years, 65 men), 88 FTD patients (64 ± 9 years, 43 men), and 122 HC (62 ± 10 years, 47 men) were studied. We fitted region-wise temporal models of CTh using Support Vector Regression. Then, we studied associations of individual deviations from the model with cerebrospinal fluid levels of neurofilament light chain (NfL) and 14–3-3 protein and Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE). Furthermore, we used real longitudinal data from 144 participants to test model predictivity.

Results

We defined CTh spatiotemporal models for each group with a reliable fit. Individual deviation correlated with MMSE for AD and with NfL for FTD. AD patients with higher deviations from the trend presented higher MMSE values. In FTD, lower NfL levels were associated with higher deviations from the CTh prediction. For AD and HC, we could predict longitudinal visits with the presented model trained with baseline data. For FTD, the longitudinal visits had more variability.

Conclusion

We highlight the value of CTh models for studying AD and FTD longitudinal changes and variability and their relationships with cognitive features and biomarkers.
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Literature
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Metadata
Title
Cortical thickness modeling and variability in Alzheimer’s disease and frontotemporal dementia
Authors
Agnès Pérez-Millan
Sergi Borrego-Écija
Neus Falgàs
Jordi Juncà-Parella
Beatriz Bosch
Adrià Tort-Merino
Anna Antonell
Nuria Bargalló
Lorena Rami
Mircea Balasa
Albert Lladó
Roser Sala-Llonch
Raquel Sánchez-Valle
Publication date
27-11-2023
Publisher
Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Published in
Journal of Neurology / Issue 3/2024
Print ISSN: 0340-5354
Electronic ISSN: 1432-1459
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00415-023-12087-1

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