J Korean Soc Magn Reson Med.  2010 Dec;14(2):103-114. 10.13104/jksmrm.2010.14.2.103.

Development of a Korean Standard Structural Brain Template in Cognitive Normals and Patients with Mild Cognitive Impairment and Alzheimer's Disease

• Kim MJ
• Jahng GH
• Lee HY
• Kim SM
• Ryu CW
• Shin WC
• Lee SY

• KMID: 2206907
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.13104/jksmrm.2010.14.2.103

Abstract

PURPOSE
To generate a Korean specific brain template, especially in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) by optimizing the voxel-based analysis.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
Three-dimensional T1-weighted images were obtained from 123 subjects who were 43 cognitively normal subjects and patients with 44 mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and 36 AD. The template and the corresponding aprior maps were created by using the matched pairs approach with considering differences of age, gender and differential diagnosis (DDX). We measured several characteristics in both our and the MNI templates, including in the ventricle size. Also, the fractions of gray matter and white matter voxels normalized by the total intracranial were evaluated.
RESULTS
The high resolution template and the corresponding aprior maps of gray matter, white matter (WM) and CSF were created with the voxel-size of 1 x 1 x 1 mm. Mean distance measures and the ventricle sizes differed between two templates. Our brain template had less gray matter and white matter areas than the MNI template. There were volume differences more in gray matter than in white matter.
CONCLUSION
Gray matter and/or white matter integrity studies in populations of Korean elderly and patients with AD are needed to investigate with this template.

Keyword

Alzheimer's disease; Brain template; Voxel-based analysis; Age; Gender

MeSH Terms

Aged
Alzheimer Disease
Brain
Diagnosis, Differential
Humans
Mild Cognitive Impairment

Figure

• 

  Fig. 1 Flowchart for the brain template creation. In this study, we use two separated steps, VBM5 and TOM. GM: Gray matter WM: White matter CSF: Cerebrospinal Fluid VBM: Voxel-Based Morphometry TOM: Template-O-Matic

• 

  Fig. 2 Measured parameters shown on the images of the smoothed our brain template (a, c) and the MNI-152 template (b, d). The solid lines show the center position (0, 0, 0) in x, y z plane. The upper and lower dotted lines show the length of the SP-IP size and the middle dotted line is the length of the AP-PP line. The vertical lines show the length of the RP-LP line.

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  Fig. 3 Measured distances (mm) of the ventricle area for selecting landmark sites in the MNI-152 template (Upper left and bottom left) and the smoothed our brain template (Upper right and bottom right).

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  Fig. 4 Representative segmented images obtained in a cognitively normal (CN) control subject (upper row), in a patient with mild cognitive impairment (MCI, middle row), and in a patient with Alzheimer's disease (AD, bottom row). Each subject is a 70 years-old woman. GM: Gray matter WM: White matter CSF: Cerebrospinal Fluid

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  Fig. 5 The created standard brain templates of three-dimensional T1-weighted (a) and the corresponding tissue maps of gray matter(GM, b), white matter (WM, c), andcerebrospinal fluid (CSF, d).

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  Fig. 6 The created standard brain template of three-dimensional T1-weighted images was shown as the axial plane slices.

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  Fig. 7 Beta image volumes in a general linear model; The ages are the coefficients of the third order polynomial Maps from the second row to the sixth row represent beta image volumes in a general linear model of the standard templates caused by the co-varietiesof age, gender, and DDX. GM: Gray matter WM: White matter CSF: Cerebrospinal Fluid DDX: Differential diagnosis

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