Abstract
Objective: The specificity of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-based hippocampal measurements in detecting Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathology is reduced by an age-related reduction of the hippocampus volume. We propose an adjustment for this age effect to increase the diagnostic accuracy of hippocampal volumes in AD. Method: Using an orthogonal rotational transformation of the coordinate system, values of MRI-determined volumes of hippocampus-amygdala formation (HAF) were transformed according to the age effect in 27 AD patients and 28 age- and sex-matched healthy control subjects. Results: The age transformation increased the diagnostic accuracy of HAF volumes in the study sample and in an independent sample from the literature. The age-transformed HAF volume predicted AD in a subject with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) with later biopsy-confirmed AD. Conclusion: Age transformation may provide an easily applicable method to increase the clinical diagnostic accuracy of hippocampal measurements by considering the effect of aging on hippocampus volume.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 15-19 |
| Number of pages | 5 |
| Journal | Journal of the Neurological Sciences |
| Volume | 194 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Feb 15 2002 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- Age-transformation
- Alzheimer's disease
- Diagnosis
- Discriminant analysis
- Hippocampus
- Magnetic resonance imaging
- ROC analysis
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Neurology
- Clinical Neurology