Objective: To identify network integrity changes in Huntington’s disease (HD) using grey matter whole brain structural covariance networks and to examine relationships between anatomical networks and clinical assessments.

Background: Progressive subcortical changes are known to occur in HD, a hereditary neurodegenerative disorder. To date, local grey matter volume changes in HD are commonly examined using a regional voxel-based approach but less is known about the occurrence and cohesion of cortical changes. Recently, it has been suggested that network-based analysis may be a more sensitive approach to detect group differences in grey matter volume in relation to regional analysis.

Methods: 3D-T1-weighted MRI scans of premanifest HD (N=30), HD patients (N=30) and controls (N=30) of the Track-HD study of the Leiden study site were used to identify structural covariance networks with a network-based technique independent of a-priori defined regions. Group differences in network integrity were studied controlling for age and gender. To explore whether differences in network integrity is an effective approach to examine grey matter changes, regional voxel-based analysis was additionally performed on the same data.

Results: Of the ten identified structural networks, premanifest HD and HD patients showed decreased network integrity in two networks compared to controls. One network included the caudate nucleus, precuneous and anterior cingulate cortex, and one other network contained the hippocampus, premotor, sensorimotor, and insular cortices. Additionally, in HD patients only, the network including the lingual gyrus, intracalcarine, cuneal, and lateral occipital cortices showed decreased network integrity. Changes in network integrity were significantly associated with scores of motor and neuropsychological assessments. In premanifest HD, voxel-based analyses showed pronounced volume loss in the basal ganglia, but less prominent in cortical regions.

Conclusions: Our study revealed changes in network integrity in different anatomical brain networks in premanifest HD and HD patients. Therefore, we suggest that a network-based approach might be more sensitive to reveal early cortical and subcortical changes, especially for premanifest gene carriers, compared to regional voxel-based methods.

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/early-grey-matter-changes-in-structural-covariance-networks-in-huntingtons-disease/