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Marco Duering

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11 papers

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YNICL Journal 2024 Journal Article

Temporal evolution of microstructural integrity in cerebellar peduncles in Parkinson’s disease: Stage-specific patterns and dopaminergic correlates

Chentao He
Rui Yang
Siming Rong
Piao Zhang
Xi Chen
Qi Qi
Ziqi Gao
Yan Li

BACKGROUND: Previous research revealed differences in cerebellar white matter integrity by disease stages, indicating a compensatory role in Parkinson's disease (PD). However, the temporal evolution of cerebellar white matter microstructure in patients with PD (PwPD) remains unclear. OBJECTIVE: To unravel temporal evolution of cerebellar white matter and its dopaminergic correlates in PD. METHODS: We recruited 124 PwPD from the PPMI study. The participants were divided into two subsets: Subset 1 (n = 41) had three MRI scans (baseline, 2 years, and 4 years), and Subset 2 (n = 106) had at least two MRI scans at baseline, 1 year, and/or 2 years. Free water-corrected diffusion metrics were used to measure the microstructural integrity in cerebellar peduncles (CP), the main white matter tracts connecting to and from the cerebellum. The ACAPULCO processing pipeline was used to assess cerebellar lobules volumes. Linear mixed-effect models were used to study longitudinal changes. We also examined the relationships between microstructural integrity in CP, striatal dopamine transporter specific binding ratio (SBR), and clinical symptoms. RESULTS: Microstructural changes in CP showed a non-linear pattern in PwPD. Free water-corrected fractional anisotropy (FAt) increased in the first two years but declined from 2 to 4 years, while free water-corrected mean diffusivity exhibited the opposite trend. The initial increased FAt in CP correlated with cerebellar regional volume atrophy, striatal dopaminergic SBR decline, and worsening clinical symptoms, but this correlation varied across disease stages. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest a non-linear evolution of microstructural integrity in CP throughout the course of PD, indicating the adaptive structural reorganization of the cerebellum simultaneously with progressive striatal dopaminergic degeneration in PD.

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YNICL Journal 2023 Journal Article

Spatial distributions of white matter hyperintensities on brain MRI: A pooled analysis of individual participant data from 11 memory clinic cohorts

Mirthe Coenen
Geert Jan Biessels
Charles DeCarli
Evan F. Fletcher
Pauline M. Maillard
Frederik Barkhof
Josephine Barnes
Thomas Benke

INTRODUCTION: The spatial distribution of white matter hyperintensities (WMH) on MRI is often considered in the diagnostic evaluation of patients with cognitive problems. In some patients, clinicians may classify WMH patterns as "unusual", but this is largely based on expert opinion, because detailed quantitative information about WMH distribution frequencies in a memory clinic setting is lacking. Here we report voxel wise 3D WMH distribution frequencies in a large multicenter dataset and also aimed to identify individuals with unusual WMH patterns. METHODS: Individual participant data (N = 3525, including 777 participants with subjective cognitive decline, 1389 participants with mild cognitive impairment and 1359 patients with dementia) from eleven memory clinic cohorts, recruited through the Meta VCI Map Consortium, were used. WMH segmentations were provided by participating centers or performed in Utrecht and registered to the Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI)-152 brain template for spatial normalization. To determine WMH distribution frequencies, we calculated WMH probability maps at voxel level. To identify individuals with unusual WMH patterns, region-of-interest (ROI) based WMH probability maps, rule-based scores, and a machine learning method (Local Outlier Factor (LOF)), were implemented. RESULTS: WMH occurred in 82% of voxels from the white matter template with large variation between subjects. Only a small proportion of the white matter (1.7%), mainly in the periventricular areas, was affected by WMH in at least 20% of participants. A large portion of the total white matter was affected infrequently. Nevertheless, 93.8% of individual participants had lesions in voxels that were affected in less than 2% of the population, mainly located in subcortical areas. Only the machine learning method effectively identified individuals with unusual patterns, in particular subjects with asymmetric WMH distribution or with WMH at relatively rarely affected locations despite common locations not being affected. DISCUSSION: Aggregating data from several memory clinic cohorts, we provide a detailed 3D map of WMH lesion distribution frequencies, that informs on common as well as rare localizations. The use of data-driven analysis with LOF can be used to identify unusual patterns, which might serve as an alert that rare causes of WMH should be considered.

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YNICL Journal 2022 Journal Article

Determining the OPTIMAL DTI analysis method for application in cerebral small vessel disease

Marco Egle
Saima Hilal
Anil M Tuladhar
Lukas Pirpamer
Steven Bell
Edith Hofer
Marco Duering
James Wason

BACKGROUND: DTI is sensitive to white matter (WM) microstructural damage and has been suggested as a surrogate marker for phase 2 clinical trials in cerebral small vessel disease (SVD). The study's objective is to establish the best way to analyse the diffusion-weighted imaging data in SVD for this purpose. The ideal method would be sensitive to change and predict dementia conversion, but also straightforward to implement and ideally automated. As part of the OPTIMAL collaboration, we evaluated five different DTI analysis strategies across six different cohorts with differing SVD severity. METHODS: Those 5 strategies were: (1) conventional mean diffusivity WM histogram measure (MD median), (2) a principal component-derived measure based on conventional WM histogram measures (PC1), (3) peak width skeletonized mean diffusivity (PSMD), (4) diffusion tensor image segmentation θ (DSEG θ) and (5) a WM measure of global network efficiency (Geff). The association between each measure and cognitive function was tested using a linear regression model adjusted by clinical markers. Changes in the imaging measures over time were determined. In three cohort studies, repeated imaging data together with data on incident dementia were available. The association between the baseline measure, change measure and incident dementia conversion was examined using Cox proportional-hazard regression or logistic regression models. Sample size estimates for a hypothetical clinical trial were furthermore computed for each DTI analysis strategy. RESULTS: There was a consistent cross-sectional association between the imaging measures and impaired cognitive function across all cohorts. All baseline measures predicted dementia conversion in severe SVD. In mild SVD, PC1, PSMD and Geff predicted dementia conversion. In MCI, all markers except Geff predicted dementia conversion. Baseline DTI was significantly different in patients converting to vascular dementia than to Alzheimer' s disease. Significant change in all measures was associated with dementia conversion in severe but not in mild SVD. The automatic and semi-automatic measures PSMD and DSEG θ required the lowest minimum sample sizes for a hypothetical clinical trial in single-centre sporadic SVD cohorts. CONCLUSION: DTI parameters obtained from all analysis methods predicted dementia, and there was no clear winner amongst the different analysis strategies. The fully automated analysis provided by PSMD offers advantages particularly for large datasets.

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YNIMG Journal 2022 Journal Article

Free water diffusion MRI and executive function with a speed component in healthy aging

Martin Berger
Lukas Pirpamer
Edith Hofer
Stefan Ropele
Marco Duering
Benno Gesierich
Ofer Pasternak
Christian Enzinger

Extracellular free water (FW) increases are suggested to better provide pathophysiological information in brain aging than conventional biomarkers such as fractional anisotropy. The aim of the present study was to determine the relationship between conventional biomarkers, FW in white matter hyperintensities (WMH), FW in normal appearing white matter (NAWM) and in white matter tracts and executive functions (EF) with a speed component in elderly persons. We examined 226 healthy elderly participants (median age 69. 83 years, IQR: 56. 99–74. 42) who underwent brain MRI and neuropsychological examination. FW in WMH and in NAWM as well as FW corrected diffusion metrics and measures derived from conventional MRI (white matter hyperintensities, brain volume, lacunes) were used in partial correlation (adjusted for age) to assess their correlation with EF with a speed component. Random forest analysis was used to assess the relative importance of these variables as determinants. Lastly, linear regression analyses of FW in white matter tracts corrected for risk factors of cognitive and white matter deterioration, were used to examine the role of specific tracts on EF with a speed component, which were then ranked with random forest regression. Partial correlation analyses revealed that almost all imaging metrics showed a significant association with EF with a speed component (r = -0. 213 – 0. 266). Random forest regression highlighted FW in WMH and in NAWM as most important among all diffusion and structural MRI metrics. The fornix (R2=0. 421, p = 0. 018) and the corpus callosum (genu (R 2 = 0. 418, p = 0. 021), prefrontal (R 2 = 0. 416, p = 0. 026), premotor (R 2 = 0. 418, p = 0. 021)) were associated with EF with a speed component in tract based regression analyses and had highest variables importance. In a normal aging population FW in WMH and NAWM is more closely related to EF with a speed component than standard DTI and brain structural measures. Higher amounts of FW in the fornix and the frontal part of the corpus callosum leads to deteriorating EF with a speed component.

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YNICL Journal 2022 Journal Article

Improved sensitivity and precision in multicentre diffusion MRI network analysis using thresholding and harmonization

Bruno M. de Brito Robalo
Alberto de Luca
Christopher Chen
Anna Dewenter
Marco Duering
Saima Hilal
Huiberdina L. Koek
Anna Kopczak

PURPOSE: To investigate if network thresholding and raw data harmonization improve consistency of diffusion MRI (dMRI)-based brain networks while also increasing precision and sensitivity to detect disease effects in multicentre datasets. METHODS: Brain networks were reconstructed from dMRI of five samples with cerebral small vessel disease (SVD; 629 patients, 166 controls), as a clinically relevant exemplar condition for studies on network integrity. We evaluated consistency of network architecture in age-matched controls, by calculating cross-site differences in connection probability and fractional anisotropy (FA). Subsequently we evaluated precision and sensitivity to disease effects by identifying connections with low FA in sporadic SVD patients relative to controls, using more severely affected patients with a pure form of genetically defined SVD as reference. RESULTS: In controls, thresholding and harmonization improved consistency of network architecture, minimizing cross-site differences in connection probability and FA. In patients relative to controls, thresholding improved precision to detect disrupted connections by removing false positive connections (precision, before: 0.09-0.19; after: 0.38-0.70). Before harmonization, sensitivity was low within individual sites, with few connections surviving multiple testing correction (k = 0-25 connections). Harmonization and pooling improved sensitivity (k = 38), while also achieving higher precision when combined with thresholding (0.97). CONCLUSION: We demonstrated that network consistency, precision and sensitivity to detect disease effects in SVD are improved by thresholding and harmonization. We recommend introducing these techniques to leverage large existing multicentre datasets to better understand the impact of disease on brain networks.

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YNICL Journal 2022 Journal Article

White matter volume loss drives cortical reshaping after thalamic infarcts

Julian Conrad
Maximilian Habs
Ria M. Ruehl
Rainer Bögle
Matthias Ertl
Valerie Kirsch
Ozan E Eren
Sandra Becker-Bense

OBJECTIVE: The integration of somatosensory, ocular motor and vestibular signals is necessary for self-location in space and goal-directed action. We aimed to detect remote changes in the cerebral cortex after thalamic infarcts to reveal the thalamo-cortical connections necessary for multisensory processing and ocular motor control. METHODS: Thirteen patients with unilateral ischemic thalamic infarcts presenting with vestibular, somatosensory, and ocular motor symptoms were examined longitudinally in the acute phase and after six months. Voxel- and surface-based morphometry were used to detect changes in vestibular and multisensory cortical areas and known hubs of central ocular motor processing. The results were compared with functional connectivity data in 50 healthy volunteers. RESULTS: Patients with paramedian infarcts showed impaired saccades and vestibular perception, i.e., tilts of the subjective visual vertical (SVV). The most common complaint in these patients was double vision or vertigo / dizziness. Posterolateral thalamic infarcts led to tilts of the SVV and somatosensory deficits without vertigo. Tilts of the SVV were higher in paramedian compared to posterolateral infarcts (median 11.2° vs 3.8°). Vestibular and ocular motor symptoms recovered within six months. Somatosensory deficits persisted. Structural longitudinal imaging showed significant volume reduction in subcortical structures connected to the infarcted thalamic nuclei (vestibular nuclei region, dentate nucleus region, trigeminal root entry zone, medial lemniscus, superior colliculi). Volume loss was evident in connections to the frontal, parietal and cingulate lobes. Changes were larger in the ipsilesional hemisphere but were also detected in homotopical regions contralesionally. The white matter volume reduction led to deformation of the cortical projection zones of the infarcted nuclei. CONCLUSIONS: White matter volume loss after thalamic infarcts reflects sensory input from the brainstem as well the cortical projections of the main affected nuclei for sensory and ocular motor processing. Changes in the cortical geometry seem not to reflect gray matter atrophy but rather reshaping of the cortical surface due to the underlying white matter atrophy.

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YNICL Journal 2021 Journal Article

Cognition mediates the relation between structural network efficiency and gait in small vessel disease

Mengfei Cai
Mina A. Jacob
David G. Norris
Marco Duering
Frank-Erik de Leeuw
Anil M. Tuladhar

Cerebral small vessel disease (SVD), including white matter hyperintensities (WMH), microbleeds, lacunes, was related to gait disturbances, while the underlying mechanism is unclear. Here, we investigated the relation between structural network efficiency, cognition and gait performance in 272 elderly subjects with SVD. All participants underwent 1.5 T MRI, gait and neuropsychological assessment. Conventional MRI markers for SVD, i.e. WMH volume, number of lacunes and microbleeds, were assessed. Diffusion tensor imaging-based tractography was used to reconstruct the brain network for each individual, followed by graph-theoretical analyses to compute the well-established network measure, global efficiency. We found that lower global efficiency was associated with worse gait performance, including slower gait speed and shorter stride length, independent of conventional MRI markers for SVD. This association was partly mediated via cognitive function. We identified subnetworks of white matter connections associated with gait and cognition, characterized by dominant involvement of frontal tracts. Our findings suggest that network disruption is associated with gait disturbances through cognitive dysfunction in elderly with SVD. Gait is a highly cognitive process and the crucial role of cognition should be considered when investigating gait disturbances in the elderly with SVD.

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YNICL Journal 2021 Journal Article

Diffusion MRI harmonization enables joint-analysis of multicentre data of patients with cerebral small vessel disease

Bruno M. de Brito Robalo
Geert Jan Biessels
Christopher Chen
Anna Dewenter
Marco Duering
Saima Hilal
Huiberdina L. Koek
Anna Kopczak

OBJECTIVES: Acquisition-related differences in diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (dMRI) hamper pooling of multicentre data to achieve large sample sizes. A promising solution is to harmonize the raw diffusion signal using rotation invariant spherical harmonic (RISH) features, but this has not been tested in elderly subjects. Here we aimed to establish if RISH harmonization effectively removes acquisition-related differences in multicentre dMRI of elderly subjects with cerebral small vessel disease (SVD), while preserving sensitivity to disease effects. METHODS: Five cohorts of patients with SVD (N = 397) and elderly controls (N = 175) with 3 Tesla MRI on different systems were included. First, to establish effectiveness of harmonization, the RISH method was trained with data of 13 to 15 age and sex-matched controls from each site. Fractional anisotropy (FA) and mean diffusivity (MD) were compared in matched controls between sites using tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS) and voxel-wise analysis, before and after harmonization. Second, to assess sensitivity to disease effects, we examined whether the contrast (effect sizes of FA, MD and peak width of skeletonized MD - PSMD) between patients and controls within each site remained unaffected by harmonization. Finally, we evaluated the association between white matter hyperintensity (WMH) burden, FA, MD and PSMD using linear regression analyses both within individual cohorts as well as with pooled scans from multiple sites, before and after harmonization. RESULTS: = 0.60). CONCLUSIONS: We showed that RISH harmonization effectively removes acquisition-related differences in dMRI of elderly subjects while preserving sensitivity to SVD-related effects. This study provides proof of concept for future multicentre SVD studies with pooled datasets.

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YNICL Journal 2021 Journal Article

Structural reorganization of the cerebral cortex after vestibulo-cerebellar stroke

Julian Conrad
Maximilian Habs
Maxine Ruehl
Rainer Boegle
Matthias Ertl
Valerie Kirsch
Ozan Eren
Sandra Becker-Bense

OBJECTIVE: Structural reorganization following cerebellar infarcts is not yet known. This study aimed to demonstrate structural volumetric changes over time in the cortical vestibular and multisensory areas (i.e., brain plasticity) after acute cerebellar infarcts with vestibular and ocular motor symptoms. Additionally, we evaluated whether structural reorganization in the patients topographically correlates with cerebello-cortical connectivity that can be observed in healthy participants. METHODS: We obtained high-resolution structural imaging in seven patients with midline cerebellar infarcts at two time points. These data were compared to structural imaging of a group of healthy age-matched controls using voxel-based morphometry (2×2 ANOVA approach). The maximum overlap of the infarcts was used as a seed region for a separate resting-state functional connectivity analysis in healthy volunteers. RESULTS: Volumetric changes were detected in the multisensory cortical vestibular areas around the parieto-opercular and (retro-) insular cortex. Furthermore, structural reorganization was evident in parts of the frontal, temporal, parietal, limbic, and occipital lobes and reflected functional connections between the main infarct regions in the cerebellum and the cerebral cortex in healthy individuals. CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrates structural reorganization in the parieto-opercular insular vestibular cortex after acute vestibulo-cerebellar infarcts. Additionally, the widely distributed structural reorganization after midline cerebellar infarcts provides additional in vivo evidence for the multifaceted contribution of cerebellar processing to cortical functions that extend beyond vestibular or ocular motor function.

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YNIMG Journal 2013 Journal Article

Identification of a strategic brain network underlying processing speed deficits in vascular cognitive impairment

Marco Duering
Mariya Gonik
Rainer Malik
Nikola Zieren
Sonia Reyes
Eric Jouvent
Dominique Hervé
Andreas Gschwendtner

Patients with vascular cognitive impairment (VCI) commonly exhibit deficits in processing speed. This has been attributed to a disruption of frontal-subcortical neuronal circuits by ischemic lesions, but the exact mechanisms and underlying anatomical structures are poorly understood. We set out to identify a strategic brain network for processing speed by applying graph-based data-mining techniques to MRI lesion maps from patients with small vessel disease. We studied 235 patients with CADASIL, a genetic small vessel disease causing pure VCI. Using a probabilistic atlas in standard space we first determined the regional volumes of white matter hyperintensities (WMH) and lacunar lesions (LL) within major white matter tracts. Conditional dependencies between the regional lesion volumes and processing speed were then examined using Bayesian network analysis. Exploratory analysis identified a network of five imaging variables as the best determinant of processing speed. The network included LL in the left anterior thalamic radiation and the left cingulum as well as WMH in the left forceps minor, the left parahippocampal white matter and the left corticospinal tract. Together these variables explained 34% of the total variance in the processing speed score. Structural equation modeling confirmed the findings obtained from the Bayesian models. In summary, using graph-based models we identified a strategic brain network having the highest predictive value for processing speed in our cohort of patients with pure small vessel disease. Our findings confirm and extend previous results showing a role of frontal–subcortical neuronal circuits, in particular dorsolateral prefrontal and cingulate circuits, in VCI.

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YNICL Journal 2013 Journal Article

Impact of regional cortical and subcortical changes on processing speed in cerebral small vessel disease

Ruthger Righart
Marco Duering
Mariya Gonik
Eric Jouvent
Sonia Reyes
Dominique Hervé
Hugues Chabriat
Martin Dichgans

Slowed processing speed is common in elderly subjects and frequently related to cerebral small vessel disease. Previous studies have demonstrated associations between processing speed and subcortical ischemic lesions as well as cortical alterations but the precise functional-anatomical relationships remain poorly understood. Here we assessed the impact of both cortical and subcortical changes on processing speed by measuring regional cortical thickness and regional lesion volumes within distinct white-matter tracts. To limit confounding effects from age-related pathologies we studied patients with CADASIL, a genetic small vessel disease. General linear model analysis revealed significant associations between cortical thickness in the medial frontal and occipito-temporal cortex and processing speed. Bayesian network analysis showed a robust conditional dependency between the volume of lacunar lesions in the left anterior thalamic radiation and cortical thickness of the left medial frontal cortex, and between thickness of the left medial frontal cortex and processing speed, whereas there was no direct dependency between lesion volumes in the left anterior thalamic radiation and processing speed. Our results suggest that the medial frontal cortex has an intermediate position between lacunar lesions in the anterior thalamic radiation and deficits in processing speed. In contrast, we did not observe such a relationship for the occipito-temporal region. These findings reinforce the key role of frontal-subcortical circuits in cognitive impairment resulting from cerebral small vessel disease.

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