Retrospective Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2021. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Cases. Jun 26, 2021; 9(18): 4627-4636
Published online Jun 26, 2021. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v9.i18.4627
Diagnostic value of amygdala volume on structural magnetic resonance imaging in Alzheimer’s disease
De-Wei Wang, Shou-Luan Ding, Xian-Li Bian, Shi-Yue Zhou, Hui Yang, Ping Wang
De-Wei Wang, Xian-Li Bian, Hui Yang, Ping Wang, Department of Neurology, The Second Hospital, Cheeloo College of Medicine, Shandong University, Jinan 250033, Shandong Province, China
Shou-Luan Ding, Center for Evidence-Based Medicine, Institute of Medical Sciences, The Second Hospital, Cheeloo College of Medicine, Shandong University, Jinan 250033, Shandong Province, China
Shi-Yue Zhou, Cheeloo College of Medicine, Shandong University, Jinan 250012, Shandong Province, China
Author contributions: Wang P designed the study; Wang DW wrote the paper; Bian XL, Zhou SY, and Yang H drafted the work and collected the data; Ding SL collected and analyzed the data.
Supported by The Young Talents Fund of the Second Hospital of Shandong University, No. 2018YT16; Rongxiang Regenerative Medicine Foundation of Shandong University, No. 2019SDRX-09.
Institutional review board statement: The study was approved by the Medical Research Ethics Committee of the Second Hospital of Shandong University.
Informed consent statement: All study participants, or their legal guardian, provided informed written consent prior to study enrollment.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The author declares that there is no conflict of interest between them.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Ping Wang, PhD, Associate Chief Physician, Department of Neurology, The Second Hospital, Cheeloo College of Medicine, Shandong University, No. 247 Beiyuan Street, Jinan 250033, Shandong Province, China. wping0108@163.com
Received: March 2, 2021
Peer-review started: March 2, 2021
First decision: April 4, 2021
Revised: April 6, 2021
Accepted: April 26, 2021
Article in press: April 26, 2021
Published online: June 26, 2021
Abstract
BACKGROUND

The main clinical manifestation of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is memory loss, which can be accompanied by neuropsychiatric symptoms at different stages of the disease. Amygdala is closely related to emotion and memory.

AIM

To evaluate the diagnostic value of amygdala on structural magnetic resonance imaging (sMRI) for AD.

METHODS

In this study, 22 patients with AD and 26 controls were enrolled. Their amygdala volumes were measured by sMRI and analyzed using an automatic analysis software.

RESULTS

The bilateral amygdala volumes of AD patients were significantly lower than those of the controls and were positively correlated with the hippocampal volumes. Receiver operating characteristic curve analyses showed that the sensitivity of the left and right amygdala volumes in diagnosing AD was 80.8% and 88.5%, respectively. Subgroup analyses showed that amygdala atrophy was more serious in AD patients with neuropsychiatric symptoms, which mainly included irritability (22.73%), sleep difficulties (22.73%), apathy (18.18%), and hallucination (13.64%).

CONCLUSION

Amygdala volumes measured by sMRI can be used to diagnose AD, and amygdala atrophy is more serious in patients with neuropsychiatric symptoms.

Keywords: Alzheimer’s disease, Amygdala, Structural magnetic resonance imaging, Neuropsychiatric symptoms

Core Tip: Amygdala volume measured by structural magnetic resonance imaging can be used for the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease, and the degree of amygdala atrophy is more severe in patients with neuropsychiatric symptoms.