Journal
CEREBRAL CORTEX
Volume 22, Issue 12, Pages 2858-2866Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS INC
DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhr360
Keywords
axonal demyelination; diffusion tensor imaging; region of interest; voxel-based morphometry; Wallerian degeneration; white matter changes
Categories
Funding
- Italian association of HD families Associazione-Italiana-Corea-di-Huntington-Neuromed
- IRCCS Neuromed
- Ministry of Health, Italy
- Italian Olympic Committee (CONI)
- European Huntington's Disease Network for the REGISTRY Study
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Recent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies suggest that abnormalities in Huntington's disease (HD) extend to white matter (WM) tracts in early HD and even in presymptomatic stages. Thus, changes of the corpus callosum (CC) may reflect various aspects of HD pathogenesis. We recruited 17 HD patients, 17 pre-HD subjects, and 34 healthy age-matched controls. Three-dimensional anatomical MRI and diffusion tensor images of the brain were acquired on a 3T scanner. Combining region-of-interest analyses, voxel-based morphometry, and tract-based spatial statistics, we investigated callosal thickness, WM density, fractional anisotropy, and radial and axial diffusivities. Compared with controls, pre-HD subjects showed reductions of the isthmus, likely due to myelin damage. Compared with pre-HD subjects, HD patients showed reductions of isthmus and body, with axonal damage confined to the body. Compared with controls, HD patients had significantly decreased callosal measures in extended regions across almost the entire CC. At this disease stage, both myelin and axonal damage are detectable. Supplementary multiple regression analyses revealed that WM reduction density in the isthmus as well as Disease Burden scores allowed to predict the HD development index. While callosal changes seem to proceed in a posterior-to-anterior direction as the diseases progresses, this observation requires validation in future longitudinal investigations.
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