The relation of regional cerebral perfusion and atrophy in mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and early Alzheimer's dementia

Luckhaus, Christian; Cohnen, Mathias; Flüβ, Michael Oliver; Jänner, Michaela; Grass-Kapanke, Brigitte; Teipel, Stefan J.; Grothe, Michel; Hampel, Harald; Peters, Oliver; Kornhuber, Johannes; Maier, Wolfgang; Supprian, Tillmann; Gaebel, Wolfgang; Mödder, Ulrich; Wittsack, Hans-Jörg

doi:10.1016/j.pscychresns.2010.04.003

« Previous Next »Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging
Volume 183, Issue 1 , Pages 44-51, 30 July 2010

The relation of regional cerebral perfusion and atrophy in mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and early Alzheimer's dementia

Christian Luckhaus
- Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Heinrich-Heine-University, Duesseldorf, Germany
- Corresponding author. Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Heinrich-Heine-University, Bergische Landstrasse 2, 40629 Düsseldorf, Germany. Tel.: +49 211 9222741; fax: +49 211 9222745.
Mathias Cohnen
- Department of Radiology, Städtische Kliniken Neuss, Lukaskrankenhaus GmbH, Neuss, Germany
Michael Oliver Flüβ
- Department of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, Private Practice Association, Neuss, Germany
Michaela Jänner
- Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Heinrich-Heine-University, Duesseldorf, Germany
Brigitte Grass-Kapanke
- Department of Geriatric Psychiatry, Alexian Hospital, Krefeld, Germany
Stefan J. Teipel
- Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Rostock, Germany
- German Center for Neurodegenerative Disease (DZNE), Bonn, Germany
Michel Grothe
- Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Rostock, Germany
- Laboratory of Functional Neuroscience, University Pablo de Olavide, Seville, Spain
Harald Hampel
- Department of Psychiatry, Dementia and Neuroimaging Research Section, Alzheimer Memorial Center and Psychiatric Research Branch, Ludwig-Maximilian University, Munich, Germany
- Discipline of Psychiatry, School of Medicine & Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience (TCIN), Laboratory of Neuroimaging and Biomarker Research, Trinity College Dublin, The Adelaide and Meath Hospital incorporating the National Children's Hospital (AMiNCH), Dublin, Ireland
Oliver Peters
- Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Charité, University of Berlin, Germany
Johannes Kornhuber
- Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Erlangen, Germany
Wolfgang Maier
- Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Bonn, Germany
Tillmann Supprian
- Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Heinrich-Heine-University, Duesseldorf, Germany
Wolfgang Gaebel
- Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Heinrich-Heine-University, Duesseldorf, Germany
Ulrich Mödder
- Department of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, Private Practice Association, Neuss, Germany
Hans-Jörg Wittsack
- Department of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, Private Practice Association, Neuss, Germany

Received 20 October 2008; received in revised form 11 February 2010; accepted 8 April 2010.

Abstract

The spatial and temporal relations between regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) and brain volume (rVOL) changes in incipient and early Alzheimer's dementia (AD) are not fully understood. The participants comprised 30 subjects with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and 15 with mild AD who were examined using structural and perfusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) at 1.5 Tesla. Hippocampus and amygdala volumes were measured by manual volumetry. A region-of-interest co-localisation method was used to calculate rCBF values. DNA samples were genotyped for apolipoprotein E (APO E). In comparisons of AD with MCI, rCBF was reduced in the posterior cingulum only, while profound rVOL reductions occurred in both right and left amygdala and in the right hippocampus, and as a trend, in the left hippocampus. Brain volumes of the hippocampus and the amygdala were uncorrelated with the respective rCBF variables in both MCI and AD. Hippocampal but not amygdalar volumes were associated with presence of one or two APOE ε4 alleles in MCI and mild AD, while there was no association of APOE ε4 allele with rCBF. These data support earlier indications that rCBF and rVOL changes are at least partly dissociated in the early pathogenesis of AD and heterogeneously associated with the APOE risk allele. The data also support the concept of functional compensatory brain activation and the diaschisis hypothesis as relevant in incipient and early AD.

Keywords: Cerebral perfusion, Cerebral blood flow, Brain volume, Atrophy, Hippocampus, Amygdala, Apolipoprotein E, APOE, Mild cognitive impairment, MCI, Alzheimer's disease, Dementia