Brain Tissue Displacement and Strain Measures in an Alzheimer’s Disease Cohort using DENSE

Motivation: Cardiac driven motions may affect Alzheimer's Disease. Goal(s): The goal was to provide preliminary results on the success of measuring the displacement and strain of brain tissues due to Cardiac Arterial Pulsations (CAPs) using DENSE (Displacement ENcoding with Stimulated Echoes) in patients with AD and age-comparable controls. Approach: DENSE scan data from a sample of 133 volunteers was processed and evaluated for trends in the derived displacement and strain information. Results: High variability was found in the displacement measures, and future work is needed to determine the confounding factors behind the variability and to what degree those factors can be minimized going forwardImpact: DENSE MR was used to measure displacement of brain tissue from cardiac effects in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) patients and age-comparable controls. Preliminary results are inconclusive and future work is needed to determine what confounding factors are affecting the displacement measures.