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Correlating quantitative tractography at 3T MRI and cognitive tests in healthy older adults

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Abstract

This study used diffusion tensor imaging tractography at 3 T MRI to relate cognitive function to white matter tracts in the brain. Brain T2 fluid attenuated inversion recovery-weighted and diffusion tensor 3 T MRI scans were acquired in thirty-three healthy participants without mild cognitive impairment or dementia. They completed a battery of neuropsychological tests including the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, Stroop test, Trail Making Test B, Wechsler Memory Scale-III Longest span forward, Wechsler Memory Scale-III Longest span backward, Mattis Dementia Rating Scale, California Verbal Learning Test Version II Long Delay Free Recall, and Letter Number Sequencing. Tractography was generated by the Fiber Assignment by Continuous Tracking method. The corpus callosum, cingulum, long association fibers, corticospinal/bulbar tracts, thalamic projection fibers, superior cerebellar peduncle, middle cerebellar peduncle and inferior cerebellar peduncle were manually segmented. The fractional anisotropy (FA) and mean diffusivity (MD) of these tracts were quantified. We studied the association between cognitive test scores and the MD and FA of tracts while controlling for age and total white matter hyperintensities volume. Worse scores on the Stroop test was associated with decreased FA of the corpus callosum, corticospinal/bulbar tract, and thalamic projection tracts. Scores on the other cognitive tests were not associated with either the FA or MD of measured tracts. In healthy persons the Stroop test appears to be a better predictor of the microstructural integrity of white matter tracts measured by DTI tractography than other cognitive tests.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Medical Imaging, University of Toronto, 4th floor, 263 McCaul St, Toronto, ON, M5T 1W7, Canada

    William Reginold

  2. Memory Clinics, Division of Geriatric Medicine, Department of Medicine, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON, Canada

    William Reginold & Angeles Garcia

  3. Centre for Neuroscience Studies, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON, Canada

    Justine Itorralba, Angela Tam, Angela C. Luedke & Angeles Garcia

  4. Life Sciences, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Jennifer Reginold

  5. Department of Diagnostic Radiology, Kingston General Hospital, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON, Canada

    Omar Islam

  6. Departamento de Fisiologia, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Distrito Federal, CP, 04510, Mexico

    Juan Fernandez-Ruiz

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  1. William Reginold
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  4. Angela C. Luedke
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  8. Angeles Garcia
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Correspondence to William Reginold.

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All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000. Informed consent was obtained from all patients for being included in the study.

Conflict of interest

William Reginold, Justine Itorralba, Angela Tam, Angela Luedke, Juan Fernandez-Ruiz, Jennifer Reginold, Omar Islam, and Angeles Garcia declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Reginold, W., Itorralba, J., Tam, A. et al. Correlating quantitative tractography at 3T MRI and cognitive tests in healthy older adults. Brain Imaging and Behavior 10, 1223–1230 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11682-015-9495-0

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