Radiomic Features of Hippocampal Subregions in Alzheimer’s Disease and Amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment

TLDR

Alzheimer’s disease is a progressive dementia affecting episodic memory, with amnestic mild cognitive impairment being a high‑risk precursor, and hippocampal atrophy and shape changes are the most robust MRI markers, while radiomics offers quantitative texture analysis that has been successfully applied to imaging biomarkers for AD. The study aims to determine whether hippocampal radiomic features can enable early classification of AD and aMCI. The authors extracted 1,692 radiomic features from the caudal and head regions of both hippocampi in 38 AD patients, 33 aMCI patients, and 45 normal controls, and used ANOVA to identify 111 features with statistically significant group differences.

Abstract

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is characterized by progressive dementia, especially in episodic memory, and amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) is associated with a high risk of developing AD. Hippocampal atrophy/shape changes are believed to be the most robust magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) markers for AD and aMCI. Radiomics, a method of texture analysis, can quantitatively examine a large set of features and has previously been successfully applied to evaluate imaging biomarkers for AD. To test whether radiomic features in the hippocampus can be employed for early classification of AD and aMCI, 1692 features from the caudal and head parts of the bilateral hippocampus were extracted from 38 AD patients, 33 aMCI patients and 45 normal controls (NCs). One way analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed that 111 features exhibited statistically significant group differences (