The Value Of Voxel-based Morphological And Surface-based Morphological MRI In Patients With Multiple System Atrophy

Objective: Multiple system atrophy(MSA)is a progressive neurodegenerative disease known as malignant Parkinson’s syndrome.As the disease progressing,it is often accompanied by structural changes in the brain.Structural magnetic resonance imaging is often used to study the structural changes of the brain and has become an important method in the field of nervous system research.According to its principle,it can be divided into voxel-based morphological analysis and surface-based morphological analysis.At present,two morphological analysis methods have been applied in the study of MSA.However,due to different principles,there are some differences in the results.In this study,two morphological analysis methods were applied to the same group of patients,and the results of the two methods were compared and evaluated,aiming to explore the applicability and practical value of the two methods in clinical research.Methods: In this study,37 MSA patients in the Department of Neurology of the First Affiliated Hospital of China Medical University were enrolled,and 30 healthy controls with matched age,gender and education level were enrolled.3DT1 images of the MSA and HC groups were analyzed for differences between the groups using the CAT12software(voxel-based morphological analysis method)and the Freesurfer software(surface-based morphology analysis method),and according to 34 ROIs of the Desikan-Killiany brain atlas,the results obtained by the two methods were extracted for post-analysis test to evaluate the differences and correlations between the two results.Results: Analysis of the MSA group and HC group showed that both software were able to detect cortical thickness atrophy in MSA patients,with the most significant cortical atrophy in the temporal and limbic lobes.Further analysis showed that there was a strong correlation between the results obtained by the two methods,but the overall cortical thickness value obtained by CAT12 software were higher,and the most obvious differences were mainly in the lateral prefrontal lobe,the preinsular cortex,the inferior frontal gyrus triangle and the insular cortex,which indicated that there might be a systematic difference between the two methods.When the cortical changes of the MSA group and HC group were analyzed by the two kinds of software,the brain regions with the most obvious differences mainly included the insular cortex,inferior temporal gyrus,middle temporal gyrus,superior temporal gyrus and superior limbic gyrus.Conclusions: Both two methods can reliably detect cortical structural changes in MSA patients.Although there are some systematic differences between them,CAT12 software can be regarded as a fast and reliable alternative to Freesurfer software when the processing resources is limited.