Joseph Mettenburg1, David N. Daniels1,
Beau Ances2, Huiling Peng2, Joshua Shimony1,
Abraham Z. Snyder1, John C. Morris2, Mark A. Mintun1,
Tammie L.S. Benzinger3
1Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology,
Washington University in Saint Louis; 2Neurology, Washington
University in Saint Louis; 3Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology,
Washington University in Saint Louis, St. Louis, MO, United States
DT-MRI
was performed on cognitively normal adults with and without a family history
of dementia of the Alzheimers type (DAT).
Regional differences were identified in the corpus callosum and
parietal white matter in those individuals with confirmed parental history of
DAT. These findings support the
hypothesis that white matter abnormalities precede the clinically apparent
onset of dementia, representing either early pathophysiological changes or
fundamental differences in white matter integrity which may place individuals
at risk for subsequent development of Alzheimer Disease.