Quantifying Cerebral Degeneration In Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Using Texture Analysis Of Multimodal Mri

Objective: We aimed to assess cerebral degeneration in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in different regions of interest (ROI’s) on T1-weighted, T2-weighted, and fluid-attenuated inversion recovery (FLAIR) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) using ROI-based texture analysis. We further tested whether texture changes correlate to clinical features. Background: Routine structural MRI plays a limited role in the diagnosis of ALS. Texture analysis is an advanced image analysis method that quantifies voxel intensity interrelationships to detect information that is imperceptible to the human eye. Little is known about the comparative performance of different MRI modalities in detecting ALS texture changes. Design/Methods: Multimodal MRI images were acquired from 49 ALS patients (59.1 ±10.1 years) and 51 healthy controls (58.2 ±10.4 years) at 3 Tesla. Texture features were computed in the precentral gyrus, corticospinal tract, and posterior internal capsule, and compared between groups using ANCOVA. Texture features were then tested for their clssification abilities and correlation with ALS clinical measures. Results: Texture feature autocorrelation did not reveal significant differences between patients and healthy controls. Other texture features were explored and inverse difference moment was significantly different between patients and healthy controls in bilateral precentral gyri (p Conclusions: Texture analysis on T1-weighted and FLAIR MRI can potentially identify changes consistent with degeneration in the precentral gyri and corticospinal tracts in patients with ALS. Disclosure: Dr. Assaedi has nothing to disclose. Dr. Parnianpour has nothing to disclose. Dr. Wu has nothing to disclose. Dr. Khan has nothing to disclose. Dr. Dionne has nothing to disclose. Dr. Genge has received personal compensation for consulting, serving on a scientific advisory board, speaking, or other activities with AB Sciences, AL-S Pharma, Avexis, Biogen, Cytokinetics, MTPA, and Roche. Dr. Genge has received research support from Sanofi-Genzyme. Dr. Korngut has received personal compensation for consulting, serving on a scientific advisory board, speaking, or other activities with Alexion, Novartis, Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma, Sarepta, Biogen, CSL Behring. Dr. Korngut has received compensation for serving on the Board of Directors of Dataffinity Health. Dr. Korngut holds stock and/or stock options in Dataffinity Health. Dr. Korngut has received research support from Biogen Idec, Sanofi Genzyme, Cytokinetics. Dr. Zinman has received personal compensation for consulting, serving on a scientific advisory board, speaking, or other activities with Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Canada.Dr. Kalra has nothing to disclose.