Cerebral atrophy in elderly with subjective memory complaints

Purpose: To evaluate ventricular shape differences along the complete surface of the lateral and third ventricles of persons with subjective memory complaints (MC). Materials and Methods: We included 28 controls and 21 persons with MC. FLAIR, T2, and PD-weighted brain MRI scans were acquired at 1.5 Tesla, followed by semi-automated segmentation of the lateral and third ventricles, and local shape difference analysis based on growing and adaptive meshes. Ventricular meshes were used to highlight local areas with significant differences between controls and persons with MC, determined by permutation tests with a predefined threshold (P = 0.01). Results: Compared with control subjects, relevant differences were found in the shape of the ventricular surface adjacent to the thalamus and corona radiata in persons with MC. Before correction for multiple comparisons, relevant differences were also found in the shape of the ventricular surface adjacent to the corpus callosum, hippocampus, and amydala. Conclusion: Our findings suggest the presence of localized structural brain differences in patients with subjective memory complaints in the thalamus and the corona radiata. J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2013;38:358-364. (c) 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.