Magnetic Resonance Imaging Texture of Medial Pulvinar in Dementia with Lewy Bodies

Abstract

Introduction: Executive dysfunction is common in dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB). The pulvinar nucleus plays a role in executive control and synchronizes with cortical regions in the salience network that are vulnerable to Lewy pathology. Objective: We investigated the pulvinar subregions in patients with mild DLB and their associations with executive function. Methods: The sample consisted of 38 DLB patients and 38 age-and sex-matched normal controls. We evaluated cognitive function using the Consortium to Establish a Registry for Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Packet. We obtained four pulvinar nuclei using preprocessed T1-weighted magnetic resonance images. We compared volumes and textures of the DLB patients and the normal controls for each nucleus. We used a linear regression to determine the association of textures and neuropsychological test scores. Results: The DLB patients showed comparable volumes to the normal controls in all pulvinar nuclei. However, the DLB patients showed different texture of the left medial pulvinar (PuM) from the normal controls. The entropy, contrast, and cluster shade were lower but autocorrelation of left PuM was higher in the DLB patients compared to the normal controls. These texture features of the left PuM were associated with the set-shifting performance measured by the Trail Making Test. Conclusions: In DLB, the left PuM may be altered from early stage, which may contribute to the development of executive dysfunction.

A structural and resting‐state functional connectivity investigation of the pulvinar in elderly individuals and Alzheimer's disease patients

“…8 Additionally, specific abnormalities of the pulvinar region were linked to Lewy body dementia associated with special cognitive impairments involving attention, and visuospatial and memory processes. 34,35 Briefly, our results suggest the pulvinar may play a role in AD-related cognitive impairment which, together with other critical regions, was affected in this study, and may contribute to cognitive deficits.…”

Thalamic nuclei changes in early and late onset Alzheimer's disease

“…Further, the MD nucleus has shown meaningful bilateral connections to the prefrontal cortex and the anterior cingulate cortex ( Eckert et al, 2012 ), regions strongly associated with executive function ( Carter et al, 1999 ; Friedman and Robbins, 2022 ). The Pulvinar nucleus is important for executive function ( Ouhaz et al, 2018 ), which have already been described as a factor that may contribute to dysexecutive function in other dementias ( Tak et al, 2020 ). This is in line with our results, as changes in the MD and the Pulvinar nucleus were associated with decreased cognitive flexibility.…”

Texture analysis of apparent diffusion coefficient maps in predicting the clinical functional outcomes of acute ischemic stroke

“…TA defines the measure of voxel intensities, voxel inter-relationships, and the gray-level patterns in the image. TA has been successfully used for characterizing multiple sclerosis (6)(7)(8), small vessel disease (9), and dementia with Lewy bodies (10). It has been demonstrated that TA is an effective tool for image analysis.…”