Detecting Amyloid Positivity Using Morphometric Magnetic Resonance Imaging.

BACKGROUND

Early detection of amyloid-β (Aβ) positivity is essential for an accurate diagnosis and treatment of Alzheimer's disease (AD), but it is currently costly and/or invasive.

OBJECTIVE

We aimed to classify Aβ positivity (Aβ+) using morphometric features from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), a more accessible and non-invasive technique, in two clinical population scenarios: one containing AD, mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and cognitively normal (CN) subjects, and another only cognitively impaired subjects (AD and MCI).

METHODS

Demographic, cognitive (Mini-Mental State Examination [MMSE] scores), regional morphometry MRI (volumes, areas, and thicknesses), and derived morphometric graph theory (GT) features from all subjects (302 Aβ+, age: 73.3±7.2, 150 male; 246 Aβ-, age: 71.1±7.1, 131 male) were combined in different feature sets. We implemented a machine learning workflow to find the best Aβ+ classification model.

RESULTS

In an AD+MCI+CN population scenario, the best-performing model selected 120 features (107 GT features, 12 regional morphometric features and the MMSE total score) and achieved a negative predictive value (NPVadj) of 68.4%, and a balanced accuracy (BAC) of 66.9%. In a AD+MCI scenario, the best model obtained NPVadj of 71.6%, and BAC of 70.7%, using 180 regional morphometric features (98 volumes, 52 areas and 29 thicknesses from temporal, parietal, and frontal brain regions).

CONCLUSIONS

Although with currently limited clinical applicability, regional MRI morphometric features have clinical usefulness potential for detecting Aβ status, which may be augmented by a combination with cognitive data when cognitively normal subjects make up a substantial part of the population presenting for diagnosis.