Preliminary Study On Voxel-based Morphometry Of Whole Brain Gray Matter Change In Patients With Wilson's Disease

Objective: To investigate changes of gray matter structures in Wilson's disease(WD) with voxel-based morphometry(VBM), explore the possible correlation between the gray matter structure changes and clinical symptoms, provide neuroanatomical basis for further study of WD neuropsychiatric symptoms of central nervous system mechanisms.Methods: The subjects were 30 cases of WD patients who were hospitalized in the First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui University of Traditional Chinese Medicine and 30 cases of healthy volunteers. The subjects were matched with age and sex, all of which were the right hand, and had no history of neurological or psychiatric history.All the subjects were recruited to the get T2-FLAIR sequence images and three-dimensional(3D) brain structures image with GE 3.0T MRI scanner.After data preprocessing by FSL-VBM software, AFNI software was used to compare the differences in gray matter volume between the two groups by two-sample T-test, and the results were corrected by FDR(P=0.001,?<0.05). Covariates correlation analysis between individual patient data and patient age, duration, 24 H urine copper.Results:(1) Compared to controls, WD patients showed decreasing gray matter volume in bilateral caudate nucleus, globus pallidus, thalamus, cerebellar, pons, precentral gyrus, postcentral gyrus, middle frontal gyrus and left posterior cingulated, pulvinar. Besides, increasing gray matter volume were also observed in bilateral and corpus callosum, right superior temporal gyrus, superior frontal gyrus, red nucleus and left of middle temporal gyrus, medial frontal gyrus. Volume change of gray matter atrophy and hyperplasia in bilateral insular lobes.(2) The change of gray matter volume in WD patients had no significant correlation with the age, duration, and 24 H urine copper.Conclusions: In this study, patients with WD was found to have extensive gray matter volume atrophy in the gray matter nucleus and cerebral cortex by using VBM, the atrophy region is mainly involved in extrapyramidal system. The atrophy of these gray matter volumes may be the neural basis of the patients with extrapyramidal symptoms.Part of the cortex area and a few gray matter nuclei exists hyperplasia of gray matter volume,which is mainly located in the movement related area.The changes in gray matter volume may be a compensatory mechanism of the central nervous system.In addition there are a few gray matter abnormal brain regions is of great significance for explaining WD patients mental symptoms.