Classification of Huntington's Disease Stage with Features Derived from Structural and Diffusion-Weighted Imaging

• Autor(a) principal: Lavrador, Rui Filipe David
• Data de Publicação: 2022
• Outros Autores: Júlio, Filipa, Januário, Cristina, Castelo Branco, Miguel, Caetano, Gina
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• DOI: 10.3390/jpm12050704
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10316/103347; https://doi.org/10.3390/jpm12050704
• topic: Huntington’s disease; grey matter density; fractional anisotropy; classification; support vector machine; basal ganglia

The purpose of this study was to classify Huntington's disease (HD) stage using support vector machines and measures derived from T1- and diffusion-weighted imaging. The effects of feature selection approach and combination of imaging modalities are assessed. Fourteen premanifest-HD individuals (Pre-HD; on average > 20 years from estimated disease onset), eleven early-manifest HD (Early-HD) patients, and eighteen healthy controls (HC) participated in the study. We compared three feature selection approaches: (i) whole-brain segmented grey matter (GM; voxel-based measure) or fractional anisotropy (FA) values; (ii) GM or FA values from subcortical regions-of-interest (caudate, putamen, pallidum); and (iii) automated selection of GM or FA values with the algorithm Relief-F. We assessed single- and multi-kernel approaches to classify combined GM and FA measures. Significant classifications were achieved between Early-HD and Pre-HD or HC individuals (accuracy: generally, 85% to 95%), and between Pre-HD and controls for the feature FA of the caudate ROI (74% accuracy). The combination of GM and FA measures did not result in higher performances. We demonstrate evidence on the high sensitivity of FA for the classification of the earliest Pre-HD stages, and successful distinction between HD stages.