Subregional Structural Alterations in Hippocampus and Nucleus Accumbens Correlate with the Clinical Impairment in Patients with Alzheimer’s Disease Clinical Spectrum: Parallel Combining Volume and Vertex-Based Approach

Abstract

Deep gray matter structures are associated with memory and other important functions that are impaired in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and mild cognitive impairment (MCI). However, systematic characterization of the subregional atrophy and deformations in these structures in AD and MCI still need more investigations. In this article, we combined complex volumetry- and vertex-based analysis to investigate the pattern of subregional structural alterations in deep gray matter structures and its association with global clinical scores in AD (n = 30) and MCI patients (n = 30), compared to normal controls (NCs, n = 30). Among all seven pairs of structures, the bilateral hippocampi and nucleus accumbens showed significant atrophy in AD compared with NCs (p < 0.05). But only the subregional atrophy in the dorsal–medial part of the left hippocampus, the ventral part of right hippocampus, and the left nucleus accumbens, the posterior part of the right nucleus accumbens correlated with the worse clinical scores of MMSE and MOCA (p < 0.05). Furthermore, the medial–ventral part of right thalamus significantly shrank and correlated with clinical scores without decreasing in its whole volume (p > 0.05). In conclusion, the atrophy of these four subregions in bilateral hippocampi and nucleus accumbens was associated with cognitive impairment of patients, which might be potential target regions of treatment in AD. The surface analysis could provide additional information to volume comparison in finding the early pathological progress in deep gray matter structures.

Brain-Wide Mapping of Afferent Inputs to Accumbens Nucleus Core Subdomains and Accumbens Nucleus Subnuclei

“…The NAc is important in many functions (Floresco, 2015), such as learning and memory (Li et al, 2018), reward processing (Carlezon and Thomas, 2009), addiction behavior, locomotor activity, stress-related aversion, liking (Castro et al, 2016), motivation (Castro and Bruchas, 2019), and sexual motivation (Everitt, 1990;Beny-Shefer et al, 2017). In addition, NAc dysfunction is associated with many mental disorders, including schizophrenia (Cotter et al, 2001), Huntington's disease (Albin et al, 1989), alcohol addiction and drug abuse (Volkow et al, 2007;Lobo et al, 2010;Pirkulashvili et al, 2017;Morales et al, 2019), Alzheimer's disease (Schliebs and Arendt, 2011;Nie et al, 2017), and depression (Nestler and Carlezon, 2006).…”

Two Novel Pde11a Genetic Variants Increase Tau Phosphorylations in Early-onset Alzheimer's Disease

“…Expression of PDE11A4 mRNA in the brain tends to occur in CA1 neurons and in the subiculum in ventral hippocampal (VHIPP) formation. Atrophy of VHIPP has been observed in patients with AD or mild cognitive impairment [29,30]. Importantly, the extent of anatomical and functional de cits in the VHIPP appears to correlate with the severity of clinical impairment in patients with AD [30,31].…”

“…Atrophy of VHIPP has been observed in patients with AD or mild cognitive impairment [29,30]. Importantly, the extent of anatomical and functional de cits in the VHIPP appears to correlate with the severity of clinical impairment in patients with AD [30,31]. In addition, PDE11A4 can directly in uence synaptic plasticity [32].…”

Volumetric Analysis of Subcortical Structures in Obese at 3T

“…where V standard represents the standardized volume correct- ed with NBV, V roi represents the absolute volume of each segmented structure, and V NBV represents NBV [17].…”

“…The purpose of this study was to explore whether subcortical structures including thalamus, caudate, putamen, globus pallidus, hippocampus, amygdala, and nucleus accumbens are volumetrically different between obese and healthy control groups using 3T MRI. To do this, we used FMRIB's Software Library (FSL), which involved using a tool to measure the attenuation of subcortical subregions and shape changes in seven pairs of subcortical gray matter structures [17]. One of the tools of the FSL, vertex analysis is used to measure partial differences in morphology inter-groups [18].…”