Longitudinal changes in hippocampal texture from healthy aging to Alzheimer’s disease

Microstructural brain changes caused by early Alzheimer’s disease neuropathology may cause subtle changes in MR signal that are quantifiable using texture analysis, a branch of radiomics. We used cross-sectional and longitudinal analysis techniques in the ADNI dataset to examine changes in texture across the disease continuum. We found that biomarker positive but cognitively healthy older adults had measurably different hippocampal texture than those without biomarker risk. Longitudinal modelling revealed progressive textural change with disease severity, but with high inter-subject variability. Nonetheless, hippocampal texture provided additional information to volume in predicting cognitive decline in older adults without a diagnosis of dementia.