Processing Pipeline and Analytic Framework for Diffusion and Morphometric Analyses of Alzheimer’s Disease Repository Data

Alzheimer's disease is generally accompanied by brain atrophy, which can be evident on MRI based evaluation at late stages, but there is a need for earlier stage MRI markers that may predict progressive cognitive impairment. Using the NACC Uniform Data Set, a robust pipeline was developed for registering DTI maps to a Human Connectome Project template space and an analysis framework for ROI based, voxel-wise, and morphometric analysis was applied. Prominent results include increased trace in the hippocampus and an increase in ventricle volume in the group with severe cognitive impairment.