Bilateral pre- and postcentral gyrus volume positively correlates with T2-SNR of putamen in healthy adults.

INTRODUCTION

The aim of the present study was to investigate the correlation between local gray matter volume and signal-to-noise ratio on T2-weighted imaging (T2-SNR) of putamen in healthy adults using two tools: voxel-based morphometry (VBM) treating age as a confounding covariate to control for age-related gray matter volume changes and high spatial resolution T1-weighted imaging acquired with a 3.0-T magnetic resonance (3T-MR) scanner.

METHODS

Contiguous sagittal T1-weighted images and axial T2-weighted images of the brain were obtained from 1,380 healthy participants. T2-SNR of putamen was defined as A/B, where A is the mean T2-weighted signal intensity (T2-SI) in the right and left sides of putamen, and B is the background noise. The software Statistical Parametric Mapping 5 was used for image segmentation. The association between T2-SNR of putamen and gray matter volume was assessed with VBM, treating age as a confounding covariate.

RESULTS

A significant positive correlation was obtained between T2-SNR of putamen and bilateral pre- and postcentral gyrus volume.

CONCLUSION

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first VBM study to show an age-independent relationship between T2-SNR of putamen and bilateral pre- and postcentral gyrus volumes in healthy adults.