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White matter changes from mild cognitive impairment to Alzheimer’s disease: a meta-analysis

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Abstract

Previous diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) studies have reported that both mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer’s disease (AD) revealed microstructural changes [fractional anisotropy (FA)]. However, these results were not conclusive. The purpose of this meta-analysis was to identify the consistent FA alterations and the differences between MCI and AD. Case–control studies investigating MCI and AD using FA were searched in the online databases. The quantitative FA value of cognition-related brain regions was extracted and the standardized mean difference (SMD) with 95% confidence interval (CI) was calculated using fixed or random effect models. Twenty six studies with a total of 1,021 patients were included in this meta-analysis. Significantly decreased FA in patients with AD were identified in the left frontal lobe, corpus callosum (CC), fornix, hippocampus (HP), cingulate gyrus (CG), cingulate bundle (CB), uncinate fasciculus (UF), superior longitudinal fasciculus(SLF), the inferior fronto-occipital fascicles (IFOF), and the inferior longitudinal fasciculus(ILF) relative to MCI in this meta-analysis. This study provides objective and quantitative evidence that AD is associated with FA alteration within left frontal lobe, CC, FX, HP, CG, CB, and UF may suggest the key regions of the process from MCI to AD.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Science and Technology Department of Sichuan Province (No. SYZ201930); Bureau of Science and Technology Nanchong City (18SXHZ0434); and the North Sichuan Medical College (CBY17-A-YB07).

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  1. Linzi Qin and Zhiwei Guo contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of CT/MRI, Institute of Rehabilitation and Imaging of Brain Function, The Second Clinical Medical College of North Sichuan Medical College, Nanchong, 637000, China

    Linzi Qin, Zhiwei Guo, Morgan A. McClure & Qiwen Mu

  2. Department of Medical Imaging, Southwest Medical University, Luzhou, 646000, Luzhou, China

    Linzi Qin & Qiwen Mu

  3. Department of Radiology, Peking University Third Hospital, Beijing, 100191, China

    Qiwen Mu

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  1. Linzi Qin
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Correspondence to Qiwen Mu.

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Qin, L., Guo, Z., McClure, M.A. et al. White matter changes from mild cognitive impairment to Alzheimer’s disease: a meta-analysis. Acta Neurol Belg 121, 1435–1447 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13760-020-01322-5

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