T2-VBM is More Sensitive to Alzheimers Disease Pathology Than Conventional T1-VBM

Julio Acosta-Cabronero¹, Lara Z. Diaz-de-Grenu¹, Joao MS Pereira¹, George Pengas¹, Guy B. Williams¹, Peter J. Nestor¹

In this study we tested the hypothesis that voxel-based morphometry (VBM) using the recently-developed T2-weighted SPACE acquisition would be more sensitive to grey matter pathology in Alzheimers disease (AD) than conventional T1-VBM using MPRAGE images with the same resolution. The distribution of abnormalities identified by T2-VBM, but not with T1-VBM, bore a striking resemblance to the distribution of amyloid plaque deposition in AD. This study demonstrates that T2-VBM is more sensitive to histopathological brain changes than the conventional T1-VBM method.