Amir Fazlollahi1,2, Pierrick Bourgeat1, Ashley I. Bush3,4, Fabrice Meriaudeau 2, David Ames4, Colin L. Masters3,4, Christopher C. Rowe4,5, Victor L. Villemagne3,4,5, and Olivier Salvado1
1Australian e-Health Research centre, CSIRO, Brisbane, Australia, 2University of Burgundy, Le Creusot, France, 3Florey Institute of Neuroscience & Mental Health, Melbourne, Australia, 4The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia, 5Austin Health, Melbourne, Australia
MRI susceptibility weighted imaging (SWI) has shown a promising sensitivity in visualizing iron deposits, while less effort is made to establish a pseudo-quantitative estimate of iron. In this study, an image processing framework was employed to normalize the uncalibrated intensity of SWI with respect to the corresponding value of cerebrospinal fluid. After excluding large detectable veins, the resulting pseudo-quantitative image along with a standard brain atlas, were used to compute regional concentrations of iron in a cohort of Alzheimer’s disease. A group-wise analysis was then showed a stepwise increment in SWI-iron along the progression of the disease.
