Study on Gray and White Matter Changes in ALS with Voxle-Based Morphometry Using DARTEL

Lin Ma¹, Zhiye Chen¹

Standard VBM (VBM-STANDARD) has demonstrated gray and white matter loss in ALS. In order to evaluate the efficacy of VBM with DARTEL algorithm (VBM-DARTEL), both VBM-DARTEL and VBM-STANDARD were performed in ALS. High resolution images were acquired from 30 ALS patients and 30 controls. ALS was subclassified into ALS/MCI and ALS/CN, and ALS/Bulbar and ALS/Limb. VBM-DARTEL revealed more gray and white matter deficits than VBM-STANDARD. With VBM-DARTEL, gray matter loss was also detected in ALS/MCI compared with ALS/CN, and gray and white matter deficits in ALS/Limb compared with ALS/Bulbar. VBM-DARTEL was more accurate than VBM-STANDARD in performing volumetric studies.