Abstract

We aim to estimate brain tissue displacements in the medial temporal lobe (MTL) using backscattered ultrasound radiofrequency (US RF) signals, and to assess the diagnostic ability of brain tissue displacement parameters for the differentiation of patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) from healthy controls (HC). Standard neuropsychological evaluation and transcranial sonography (TCS) for endogenous brain tissue motion data collection are performed for 20 patients with AD and for 20 age- and sex-matched HC in a prospective manner. Essential modifications of our previous method in US waveform parametrization, raising the confidence of micrometer-range displacement signals in the presence of noise, are done. Four logistic regression models are constructed, and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analyses are applied. All models have cut-offs from 61.0 to 68.5% and separate AD patients from HC with a sensitivity of 89.5% and a specificity of 100%. The area under a ROC curve of predicted probability in all models is excellent (from 95.2 to 95.7%). According to our models, AD patients can be differentiated from HC by a sharper morphology of some individual MTL spatial point displacements (i.e., by spreading the spectrum of displacements to the high-end frequencies with higher variability across spatial points within a region), by lower displacement amplitude differences between adjacent spatial points (i.e., lower strain), and by a higher interaction of these attributes.

Highlights

  • Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is one of the most common neurodegenerative disorders in Europe and in the world [1]

  • Patients were included in the study if they: (1) were diagnosed with possible sporadic Alzheimer’s disease based on the National Institute of Neurological and Communicative Disorders and Stroke (NINCDS)

  • 0.67–2.00 Hz was determined empirically, as within this interval we found the spectrum peak corresponding to the repeatable waveform of displacements in ultrasound radiofrequency (US RF) signals from all subjects

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Summary

Introduction

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is one of the most common neurodegenerative disorders in Europe and in the world [1]. The main pathologic characteristic of AD is cerebral beta-amyloidosis and neurodegeneration hallmarked by amyloid plaque and neuronal tangles upon microscopic examination. There is still a need for an accessible, reliable, safe, and affordable diagnostic tool. Transcranial sonography (TCS) is a non-invasive, relatively cheap, and portable ultrasound (US). Method which allows to us investigate and evaluate brain tissue echogenicity. TCS has been proven to be a reliable diagnostic tool in the differential diagnosis of Parkinsonian syndromes [4,5], and a good method to measure focal and global brain atrophy [6]. Studies have shown that atrophy of the Diagnostics 2020, 10, 452; doi:10.3390/diagnostics10070452 www.mdpi.com/journal/diagnostics

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