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Dementia

Shape asymmetry of brain structures predicts dementia

Nature Reviews Neurology volume 12, page 679 (2016)Cite this article

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Asymmetries in the shapes of cortical and subcortical structures correlate with severity of cognitive impairment and can predict onset of Alzheimer disease (AD), according to recent work that used a novel approach to analysing neuroanatomical structures. The findings suggest that shape asymmetry could be a biomarker that allows early detection of dementia.

“We previously developed a new characterization of brain morphology based on shape descriptors, which we called the BrainPrint,” explains Wachinger. “The BrainPrint captures the rich geometric information of brain structures, which is only crudely represented by commonly used volume measurements. We aim to use the advanced computational modelling in the BrainPrint to assist in the diagnosis of AD.”

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References

  1. Wachinger, C. et al. Whole-brain analysis reveals increased neuroanatomical asymmetries in dementia for hippocampus and amygdala. Brain http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/brain/aww243 (2016)

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  1. Ian Fyfe
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Wachinger, C. et al. BrainPrint: a discriminative characterization of brain morphology. Neuroimage 109, 232–248 (2015)

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Fyfe, I. Shape asymmetry of brain structures predicts dementia. Nat Rev Neurol 12, 679 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrneurol.2016.169

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