Thalamic nuclei changes in early and late onset Alzheimer's disease
Thalamic nuclei changes in early and late onset Alzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common cause of dementia worldwide. Increasing evidence points to the thalamus as an important hub in the clinical symptomatology of the disease, with the 'limbic thalamus' been described as especially vulnerable. In this work, we examined thalamic atrophy in early-onset AD (EOAD) and late-onset AD (LOAD) compared to young and old healthy controls (YHC and OHC, respectively) using a recently developed cutting-edge thalamic nuclei segmentation method. A deep learning variant of Thalamus Optimized Multi Atlas Segmentation (THOMAS) was used to parcellate 11 thalamic nuclei per hemisphere from T1-weighted MRI in 88 biomarker-confirmed AD patients (49 EOAD and 39 LOAD) and 58 healthy controls (41 YHC and 17 OHC) with normal AD biomarkers. Nuclei volumes were compared among groups using MANCOVA. Further, Pearson's correlation coefficient was computed between thalamic nuclear volume and cortical-subcortical regions, CSF tau levels, and neuropsychological scores. The results showed widespread thalamic nuclei atrophy in EOAD and LOAD compared to their respective healthy control groups, with EOAD showing additional atrophy in the centromedian and ventral lateral posterior nuclei compared to YHC. In EOAD, increased thalamic nuclei atrophy was associated with posterior parietal atrophy and worse visuospatial abilities, while LOAD thalamic nuclei atrophy was preferentially associated with medial temporal atrophy and worse episodic memory and executive function. Our findings suggest that thalamic nuclei may be differentially affected in AD according to the age at symptoms onset, associated with specific cortical-subcortical regions, CSF total tau and cognition.
Forno, Gonzalo
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Saranathan, Manojkumar
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Contador, Jose
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Guillen, Nuria
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Falgàs, Neus
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Tort-Merino, Adrià
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Balasa, Mircea
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Sanchez-Valle, Raquel
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Hornberger, Michael
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Lladó, Albert
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29 March 2023
Forno, Gonzalo
9119ed81-614d-4d2c-b302-7b69a2a498f7
Saranathan, Manojkumar
36513c5d-9201-4098-9877-fe2306f1975b
Contador, Jose
3665c4d1-a6d9-4dc8-ac75-71398561d2bb
Guillen, Nuria
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Falgàs, Neus
73b9b92a-55e2-423e-8efa-99b313dee944
Tort-Merino, Adrià
90c06922-9dcf-4284-bcac-b7cc720f6b3a
Balasa, Mircea
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Sanchez-Valle, Raquel
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Hornberger, Michael
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Lladó, Albert
fd1e3519-29e4-411b-be99-c1f361cdf285
Forno, Gonzalo, Saranathan, Manojkumar, Contador, Jose, Guillen, Nuria, Falgàs, Neus, Tort-Merino, Adrià, Balasa, Mircea, Sanchez-Valle, Raquel, Hornberger, Michael and Lladó, Albert
(2023)
Thalamic nuclei changes in early and late onset Alzheimer's disease.
Current Research in Neurobiology, 4, [100084].
(doi:10.1016/j.crneur.2023.100084).
Abstract
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common cause of dementia worldwide. Increasing evidence points to the thalamus as an important hub in the clinical symptomatology of the disease, with the 'limbic thalamus' been described as especially vulnerable. In this work, we examined thalamic atrophy in early-onset AD (EOAD) and late-onset AD (LOAD) compared to young and old healthy controls (YHC and OHC, respectively) using a recently developed cutting-edge thalamic nuclei segmentation method. A deep learning variant of Thalamus Optimized Multi Atlas Segmentation (THOMAS) was used to parcellate 11 thalamic nuclei per hemisphere from T1-weighted MRI in 88 biomarker-confirmed AD patients (49 EOAD and 39 LOAD) and 58 healthy controls (41 YHC and 17 OHC) with normal AD biomarkers. Nuclei volumes were compared among groups using MANCOVA. Further, Pearson's correlation coefficient was computed between thalamic nuclear volume and cortical-subcortical regions, CSF tau levels, and neuropsychological scores. The results showed widespread thalamic nuclei atrophy in EOAD and LOAD compared to their respective healthy control groups, with EOAD showing additional atrophy in the centromedian and ventral lateral posterior nuclei compared to YHC. In EOAD, increased thalamic nuclei atrophy was associated with posterior parietal atrophy and worse visuospatial abilities, while LOAD thalamic nuclei atrophy was preferentially associated with medial temporal atrophy and worse episodic memory and executive function. Our findings suggest that thalamic nuclei may be differentially affected in AD according to the age at symptoms onset, associated with specific cortical-subcortical regions, CSF total tau and cognition.
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Accepted/In Press date: 14 March 2023
e-pub ahead of print date: 24 March 2023
Published date: 29 March 2023
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Local EPrints ID: 506448
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/506448
ISSN: 2665-945X
PURE UUID: c158855c-1207-430b-b3d7-938e7ba33b91
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Date deposited: 07 Nov 2025 17:37
Last modified: 08 Nov 2025 03:19
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Contributors
Author:
Gonzalo Forno
Author:
Manojkumar Saranathan
Author:
Jose Contador
Author:
Nuria Guillen
Author:
Neus Falgàs
Author:
Adrià Tort-Merino
Author:
Mircea Balasa
Author:
Raquel Sanchez-Valle
Author:
Michael Hornberger
Author:
Albert Lladó
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