Abstract #1071

Hemispheric specialisation of hippocampal viscoelasticity for memory performance in healthy older adults

Lucy V Hiscox^1,2, Curtis L Johnson³, Matthew DJ McGarry⁴, Hillary Schwarb⁵, Edwin JR van Beek², Neil Roberts², and John M Starr¹

¹Alzheimer Scotland Dementia Research Centre, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom, ²Edinburgh Imaging Facility, QMRI, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom, ³Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Delaware, Newark, DE, United States, ⁴Thayer School of Engineering, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, United States, ⁵Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana-Champaign, IL, United States

MR Elastography of the hippocampus has been associated with memory performance in young adults and thus may have potential as a novel imaging biomarker for Alzheimer’s disease (AD). In healthy older-adults, hippocampal damping ratio ξ was significantly associated with performance on a verbal memory task. Due to greater hippocampal atrophy present in older populations, the contributions of voxels containing CSF were analysed. Stronger correlations with memory were found once CSF voxels were excluded, and when the left hippocampus was analysed separately. MRE of the hippocampus may be a sensitive marker for detecting early pathological changes in patients with AD.

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