Longitudinal change of the grey matter of mild congnitive impairment patients over 3 years by using voxel-based morphometry

The atrophic changes in mild cognitive impairment (MCI) have been proposed as biomarkers for detection and monitoring. This paper analyzed magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to identify the atrophy regions of the whole brain grey matter (GM) in longitudinal MCI group. Based on the method of voxel-based morphometry (VBM), the two-sample t test was performed to compare MCI (n=21) in the initial stage (baseline) and that in 3 years which were got from ADNI. Our results are as followed, 3 years later, the regions of GM atrophy(p<;0.005, k≥200) included the bilateral temporal lobe, the bilateral cerebellum posterior lobe, the right frontal lobe, the left paracentral lobule, the right frontal lobe, the right anterior cingulate and the left declive. In addition, comparing the Alzheimer´s disease (AD, n=23) group with normal control (NC, n=16) group, the atrophy regions were found to be consistent with the results of the longitudinal MCI data. The accelerated atrophy may result from neurofibrillary tangles and other pathological processes. The VBM analysis results which were assessed in longitudinal MCI may have a prognosis to the diagnosis of AD.