MRI-texture analysis of corpus callosum, thalamus, putamen, and caudate in Machado-Joseph disease.

BACKGROUND/PURPOSE Texture analysis (TA) is a branch of image processing, which attempts to convey “texture” information from digital images, such as magnetic resonance images (MRI). Machado-Joseph disease (MJD) affects mainly cerebellum and brainstem, but recent studies have shown that other cerebral structures may also be affected. OBJECTIVE To investigate subtle structural abnormalities in corpus callosum (CC), thalami, putamen, and caudate nuclei of patients with MJD using TA. METHODS Eighteen healthy volunteers and 18 patients with MJD were studied (mean age at disease onset = 34.7 years; disease duration = 9.6 years; mean expanded CAG in the MJD1 gene = 73). A TA approach based on the gray-level cooccurrence matrix was applied to T1-MRI. Regions of interest were manually segmented for each subject, and texture parameters were computed for each of the aforementioned anatomical structures. RESULTS TA parameters showed differences between the 2 groups for the caudate nuclei, thalami, and putamen. No differences were found for the CC. CONCLUSIONS TA was capable of detecting tissue alterations in MRI of patients with MJD. These alterations were in areas already shown to be affected by histopathological studies. In addition, we confirmed the thalamic involvement in patients with MJD, which had only been demonstrated in volumetric studies.