Voxel-Based Morphometry in Individual Patients: A Pilot Study in Early Huntington Disease

Results derived from ANCOVAs in 4 patients with HD. GM decrease of 4 patients with HD (1 patient per panel) is displayed by the maximum intensity projection (left side), by the projection onto the normalized averaged T1-image (middle) and, to enable visual inspection, by the individual T1-weighted image (right side). The numbers in the upper right corner indicate the MNI coordinates. All images are displayed with a significance threshold (voxel level) of P less than .05 corrected (FDR). In panel A, axial sections of HD patient 5 (motor score of the Unified Huntington's Disease Scale, 34; CAG repeats, 43; age, 48; sex, female) are shown. In this patient, global atrophy can be detected by visual inspection (right side). In panel B, axial sections of HD patient 3 (motor score of the Unified Huntington's Disease Scale, 37; CAG repeats, 48; age, 60; sex, female) are shown; here, visual inspection fails to detect GM decrease. In panel C, axial and coronal sections of HD patient 6 (motor score of the Unified Huntington's Disease Scale, 33; CAG repeats, 43; age, 51; sex, male) are shown; note that, besides decent GM loss nearly restricted to the striatum, the atrophy of the left temporal pole (in combination with an arachnoidal cyst) is also identified. In panel D, axial and coronal sections of HD patient 13 (motor score of the Unified Huntington's Disease Scale, 9; CAG repeats, 45; age, 36; sex, female) are displayed; here, cortical and striatal GM loss is of a similar degree.

Gray-matter decrease identified in only 1 healthy control subject. Axial and coronal sections of the only matched control subject with GM decrease identified (matched control subject 4: age, 50; sex, male) are displayed by the maximum intensity projection (column A), by the projection onto the normalized averaged T1-image (B1 and C1), and, to enable visual inspection, by the individual T1-weighted image (B2 and C2). The numbers in the upper right corner indicate the MNI coordinates. All images are displayed at a significance threshold (voxel level) of P less than .05 corrected (FDR).