3D texture analysis of hippocampus based on MR images in patients with alzheimer disease and mild cognitive impairment

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common type of dementia. Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is considered as a transition stage between normal aging and dementia. In this study, 3D texture analysis was performed on magnetic resonance images (MRI) of 12 early AD patients, 12 MCI patients and 12 normal controls. Texture features of the hippocampus were extracted from gray level co-occurrence matrix and run length matrix, and were tested significant differences among three groups. Meanwhile the correlation between texture features and MMSE scores were calculated. The results showed that texture features including entropy, grey level nonuniformity and run length nonuniformity in hippocampus were significantly different among groups, and they were correlated with MMSE scores. The study suggested that 3D texture analysis could describe the pathological changes of hippocampus in patients with early AD and MCI, and could be helpful to early diagnosis of AD.