Research Article Precuneus and Cingulate Cortex Atrophy and Hypometabolism in Patients with Alzheimer’s Disease and Mild Cognitive Impairment: MRI and 18F-FDG PET Quantitative Analysis Using FreeSurfer

Copyright © 2015 Matthieu Bailly et al.This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Objective. The objective of this study was to compare glucose metabolism and atrophy, in the precuneus and cingulate cortex, in patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and mild cognitive impairment (MCI), using FreeSurfer. Methods. 47 individuals (17 patients with AD, 17 patients with amnestic MCI, and 13 healthy controls (HC)) were included. MRI and PET images using 18F-FDG (mean injected dose of 185MBq)were acquired and analyzed using FreeSurfer to define regions of interest in the hippocampus, amygdala, precuneus, and anterior and posterior cingulate cortex. Regional volumes were generated. PET images were registered to the T1-weighted MRI images and regional uptake normalized by cerebellum uptake (SUVr) was measured. Results.Mean posterior cingulate volume was reduced in MCI and AD. SUVr were different between the three groups: mean precuneus SUVr was 1.02 fo