Comparative Analysis of Iron Concentration and Magnetic Susceptibility in Older Adults Using QSM
Poster No:
1800
Submission Type:
Abstract Submission
Authors:
Rasheed Abid1, Md Tahmid Yasar1, Abdur Raquib Ridwan2, Yingjuan Wu2, Mohammad Niaz2, David Bennett2, Konstantinos Arfanakis2
Institutions:
1Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, IL, 2Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, IL
First Author:
Co-Author(s):
Introduction:
Quantitative Susceptibility Mapping (QSM) offers insights into brain iron homeostasis, vital for understanding age-related neuropathologies [1]. However, there is no study that compares in-vivo magnetic susceptibility of aging brains in their cortical regions with actual autopsy-studied iron concentration levels. The aim of this study is two-folds - (1) To analyze the relationship between iron-concentration levels with average magnetic susceptibility in the recently introduced MIITRA-QSM template. (2) Correlation between log-scaled iron-concentration level with magnetic susceptibility in the subject's native space, adjusted for age and antemortem interval.
Methods:
Data:
In this study, 3D T1-weighted MPRAGE and multi-echo 3D GRE data from a community-based aging study [2], recently developed high-resolution MIITRA-QSM template [3] in MIITRA atlas space [4], gray matter labels in the template space [5] was used for analysis.
Process:
Step 1: Using the MIITRA-QSM template, inferior-temporal, anterior-cingulate, and middle-frontal cortex, average magnetic susceptibility values were calculated in each hemisphere. For 308 non-demented older adults (aged 67.8-97.2 years) from the study [2], average iron concentration levels were plotted against the normalized median susceptibility values from the template space. Linear regression was performed to analyze the correlation.
Step 2: For 20 subjects (between 71 and 101 years of age, 16 female and antemortem interval between 0.4 to 2.4 years), from the aging study [2], we examined post-mortem iron concentration and magnetic susceptibility in their native brain space, for the same set of cortical regions. This approach involved short antemortem intervals and direct MRI-to-autopsy comparisons. Individual susceptibility values were correlated with iron concentrations through linear regression, adjusting for age and antemortem interval. Pairwise correlations were determined for the following parameters: magnetic susceptibility, iron level, sex, age and antemortem interval.
In this study, 3D T1-weighted MPRAGE and multi-echo 3D GRE data from a community-based aging study [2], recently developed high-resolution MIITRA-QSM template [3] in MIITRA atlas space [4], gray matter labels in the template space [5] was used for analysis.
Process:
Step 1: Using the MIITRA-QSM template, inferior-temporal, anterior-cingulate, and middle-frontal cortex, average magnetic susceptibility values were calculated in each hemisphere. For 308 non-demented older adults (aged 67.8-97.2 years) from the study [2], average iron concentration levels were plotted against the normalized median susceptibility values from the template space. Linear regression was performed to analyze the correlation.
Step 2: For 20 subjects (between 71 and 101 years of age, 16 female and antemortem interval between 0.4 to 2.4 years), from the aging study [2], we examined post-mortem iron concentration and magnetic susceptibility in their native brain space, for the same set of cortical regions. This approach involved short antemortem intervals and direct MRI-to-autopsy comparisons. Individual susceptibility values were correlated with iron concentrations through linear regression, adjusting for age and antemortem interval. Pairwise correlations were determined for the following parameters: magnetic susceptibility, iron level, sex, age and antemortem interval.
Results:
Regression analysis showed a significant correlation (R² = 0.892, p-value = 0.00453) between iron concentrations and MIITRA-QSM derived susceptibility values (fig 1). Adjusted for age and antemortem interval, linear regression shows strong positive relationship between in-vivo magnetic susceptibility and iron levels (R = 0.83, p-value < 0.05) (fig 2a). Pairwise correlation also shows a positive relationship between iron levels and magnetic susceptibility (fig 2b).
Conclusions:
Our results demonstrate that based on iron-concentration levels, MIITRA-QSM is highly representative of the older-adult brain for cortical regions. Moreover, considering age, sex and short-antemortem interval, individual-specific QSM can effectively reflect iron concentrations in the cortical regions of the older-adult brain.
Lifespan Development:
Aging 2
Neuroinformatics and Data Sharing:
Brain Atlases 1
Keywords:
Aging
Atlasing
MRI
1|2Indicates the priority used for review
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[2] Bennett DA, Buchman AS, Boyle PA, et al. Religious Orders Study and Rush Memory and Aging Project. J Alzheimers Dis. 2018;64(s1):S161-S189.
[3] Abid R., Ridwan A.R., Wu Y., Niaz M.R., Zhang S., Evia A., Bennett D.A., Arfanakis K., Development of a high-resolution magnetic susceptibility template of the older adult brain in MIITRA space. Proc. Int. Soc. for Magn. Reson. in Med. (ISMRM) 2023.
[4] Ridwan, Abdur Raquib, et al. "Development and evaluation of a high performance T1‐weighted brain template for use in studies on older adults." Human Brain Mapping 42.6 (2021): 1758-1776.
[5] Niaz, M.R., Ridwan, A.R., Wu, Y., Zhang, S., Bennett, D.A.A. and Arfanakis, K. (2023), Interoperability of the MIITRA atlas with complementary atlases: development of a comprehensive array of gray matter labels. Alzheimer's Dement., 19: e081601. https://doi.org/10.1002/alz.081601