Affiliations: Department of Radiology and Neurosciences at the
University of California, San Diego, CA, USA
Note: [] Address for correspondence: J.B. Brewer, Human Memory
Laboratory, 8950 Villa La Jolla Drive C212, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA. Tel.: +1
858 534 1227; Fax: +1 858 534 1240; E-mail: jbrewer@ucsd.edu
Abstract: Neurodegenerative disorders, such as Alzheimer's disease (AD), are
associated with characteristic patterns of neuropathological spread in the
brain. Disease progression is usually accompanied by regional atrophy that can
be detected noninvasively using structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). A
wealth of data has demonstrated the value of quantitative measurements of
regional atrophy in AD, suggesting that volumetric MRI (vMRI) may be a useful
clinical tool. vMRI provides biological evidence of neurodegenerative disease
in patients with cognitive impairment. However, several hurdles impede
implementation of vMRI in clinical practice. These include a lack of
standardized MRI acquisition protocols, spatial distortions in MRI data,
labor-intensive vMRI methods susceptible to interoperator variability, a lack
of normative ranges for volume measures, and difficulty integrating vMRI in
clinical workflow. Advances in vMRI have resulted from multi-institutional
studies of brain imaging, such as the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging
Initiative (ADNI), and help address these challenges. New, fully-automated
measures of brain structure volumes coupled with large, multi-center studies
using standardized MRI protocols now allow the development of age-adjusted
normative ranges for vMRI. Such advances are critical for providing physicians
a framework for assessing the pattern and degree of regional atrophy in a
patient's brain and applying vMRI in clinical practice.
