Imaging data reveal divergent longitudinal trajectories in PLS, ALS and poliomyelitis survivors: Group-level and single-subject traits
Marlene Tahedl,
Stacey Li Hi Shing,
Eoin Finegan,
Rangariroyashe H. Chipika,
Jasmin Lope,
Aizuri Murad,
Orla Hardiman,
Peter Bede
Affiliations
Marlene Tahedl
Computational Neuroimaging Group, Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute, Trinity College Dublin, Pearse Street Room 5.43, Dublin, Ireland; Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy and Institute for Psychology, University of Regensburg, Germany
Stacey Li Hi Shing
Computational Neuroimaging Group, Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute, Trinity College Dublin, Pearse Street Room 5.43, Dublin, Ireland
Eoin Finegan
Computational Neuroimaging Group, Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute, Trinity College Dublin, Pearse Street Room 5.43, Dublin, Ireland
Rangariroyashe H. Chipika
Computational Neuroimaging Group, Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute, Trinity College Dublin, Pearse Street Room 5.43, Dublin, Ireland
Jasmin Lope
Computational Neuroimaging Group, Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute, Trinity College Dublin, Pearse Street Room 5.43, Dublin, Ireland
Aizuri Murad
Computational Neuroimaging Group, Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute, Trinity College Dublin, Pearse Street Room 5.43, Dublin, Ireland
Orla Hardiman
Computational Neuroimaging Group, Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute, Trinity College Dublin, Pearse Street Room 5.43, Dublin, Ireland
Peter Bede
Computational Neuroimaging Group, Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute, Trinity College Dublin, Pearse Street Room 5.43, Dublin, Ireland; Pitié-Salpêtrière University Hospital, Sorbonne University, Paris, France; Corresponding author at: Computational Neuroimaging Group, Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute, Trinity College Dublin, Pearse Street Room 5.43, Dublin, Ireland.
Imaging profiles from a longitudinal single-centre motor neuron disease study are presented. A standardized T1-weighted MRI protocol was implemented to characterise cortical disease burden trajectories across the UMN (upper motor neuron) - LMN (lower motor neuron) spectrum of motor neuron diseases (MNDs) (Tahedl et al., 2021). Patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS n = 61), patients with primary lateral sclerosis (PLS n = 23) and poliomyelitis survivors (PMS n = 45) were included. Up to four longitudinal scans were available for each patient, separated by an inter-scan-interval of four months. Individual and group-level cortical thickness profiles were appraised using a normalisation procedure with reference to subject-specific control groups. A z-scoring approach was utilised, where each patients’ cortex was first segmented into 1000 cortical regions, and then rated as ‘thin’, ‘thick’, or ‘comparable’ to the corresponding region of a demographically-matched control cohort. Fractions of significantly ‘thin’ and ‘thick’ patches were calculated across the entire cerebral vertex as well as in specific brain regions, such as the motor cortex, parietal, frontal and temporal cortices. This approach allows the characterisation of disease burden in individual subjects as well as at a group-level, both cross-sectionally and longitudinally. The presented framework may aid the interpretation of individual cortical disease burden in other patient cohorts.
