Sunday, February 17, 2019

Pattern of Cerebellar Atrophy in Friedreich’s Ataxia—Using the SUIT Template

Tobias Lindig, Benjamin Bender, Vinod J. Kumar, Till-Karsten Hauser, Wolfgang Grodd, Bettina Brendel, Jennifer Just, Matthis Synofzik, Uwe Klose, Klaus Scheffler, Ulrike Ernemann, Ludger Schöls; Cerebellum (2019). doi:10.1007/s12311-019-1008-z

Whole-brain voxel-based morphometry (VBM) studies revealed patterns of patchy atrophy within the cerebellum of Friedreich’s ataxia patients, missing clear clinico-anatomic correlations. Studies so far are lacking an appropriate registration to the infratentorial space. To circumvent these limitations, we applied a high-resolution atlas template of the human cerebellum and brainstem (SUIT template) to characterize regional cerebellar atrophy in Friedreich’s ataxia (FRDA) on 3-T MRI data. We used a spatially unbiased voxel-based morphometry approach together with T2-based manual segmentation, T2 histogram analysis, and atlas generation of the dentate nuclei in a representative cohort of 18 FRDA patients and matched healthy controls.