{"doi":"10.1101/2025.03.14.25323769","title":"Detecting short-interval longitudinal cortical atrophy in neurodegenerative dementias via cluster scanning: A proof of concept","abstract":"Abstract Regional brain atrophy estimated from structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a widely used measure of neurodegeneration in Alzheimer’s disease (AD), Frontotemporal Lobar Degeneration (FTLD), and other dementias. Yet, traditional MRI-derived morphometric estimates are susceptible to measurement errors, posing a challenge for reliably detecting longitudinal atrophy, particularly over short intervals. Here, we examined the utility of multiple MRI scans acquired in rapid succession (i.e., cluster scanning ) for detecting longitudinal cortical atrophy over 3- and 6-month intervals within individual patients. Four individuals with mild cognitive impairment or mild dementia likely due to AD or FTLD participated in this study. At baseline, 3 months, and 6 months, structural MRI data were collected on a 3 Tesla scanner using a fast 1.2-mm T1-weighted multi-echo magnetization-prepared rapid gradient echo (MEMPRAGE) sequence (acquisition time = 2’23’’). At each timepoint, participants underwent up to 32 MEMPRAGE scans acquired in four separate sessions over two days. Using linear mixed-effects models, phenotypically vulnerable cortical (“core atrophy”) regions exhibited statistically significant longitudinal atrophy in all participants (i.e., decreased cortical thickness) by 3 months and further demonstrated preferential vulnerability compared to control regions in three of the participants over at least one of the 3-month intervals. These findings provide proof-of-concept evidence that pooling multiple morphometric estimates derived from cluster scanning can detect longitudinal cortical atrophy over short intervals in individual patients with neurodegenerative dementias.","journal":"medRxiv","year":2025,"id":563206,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9612,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2025-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":312880,"name":"Michael Brickhouse","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":809437,"name":"Lindsay C. Hanford","orcid":"0000-0002-5788-9651","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":295789,"name":"Jared A. Nielsen","orcid":"0000-0002-2717-193X","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":109919,"name":"Maxwell L. Elliott","orcid":"0000-0003-1083-6277","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":769309,"name":"R. W. Mair","orcid":"0009-0004-8085-407X","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":310911,"name":"Alexandra Touroutoglou","orcid":"0000-0001-9679-2433","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":258425,"name":"Mark C. Eldaief","orcid":"0000-0002-4919-2897","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":16290,"name":"Randy L. Buckner","orcid":"0000-0001-6422-8037","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":19606,"name":"Bradford C. Dickerson","orcid":"0000-0002-5958-3445","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":363365,"name":"Yuta Katsumi","orcid":"0000-0003-0413-747X","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":83,"raw_metadata":{"citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:56:13.374766Z","pmid":"40166536","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}