As an enrichment strategy supplemented by the diagnostic framework of subjective cognitive decline (SCD), SCD plus identifies features that may increase the likelihood of including future-Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients. This study aimed to identify the shared and distinct atrophy patterns between patients specified by SCD plus and amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI, a prodromal stage of AD) and to investigate the extent that automated brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) volumetry can differentiate patients with SCD from normal control (NC) participants and patients with aMCI. We acquired structural MRI brain scans from 44 patients with aMCI, 40 patients with SCD (who met the major criteria of SCD plus), and 48 NC participants. Automatic brain segmentation was performed to quantify the volumetric measures of cognitive-relevant areas. These volumetric measures were compared across the 3 groups with analysis of variance. In addition, we performed support vector machine analyses using volumetric measures of single regions or multiple regions to further evaluate the sensitivity of automated brain volumetry in differentiating a specific group from another. The atrophy patterns in patients with aMCI and SCD were similar. Using the regional volumetric measures, we achieved high performance in differentiating aMCI and SCD from NCs (average classification accuracy [ACC] > 90%). However, the performance was not ideal when differentiating aMCI from SCD (ACC < 63%). In conclusion, patients with SCD specified by SCD plus presented similar atrophy patterns as patients with aMCI, which was distinguishable from NC participants. Future studies should aim to associate the atrophy patterns of SCD with possible conversion to aMCI or AD in a longitudinal design.

中文翻译：

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自动化的脑部MRI容量测定可将阿尔茨海默氏病的早期阶段与正常衰老区分开来。

作为主观认知下降（SCD）诊断框架的补充策略，SCD plus可以识别可能增加纳入未来阿尔茨海默病（AD）患者的可能性的特征。这项研究旨在确定SCD plus指定的患者和轻度认知障碍（aMCI，AD的前驱阶段）之间共享和独特的萎缩模式，并研究自动脑磁共振成像（MRI）量表可以区分哪些患者来自正常对照（NC）参与者和aMCI患者的SCD。我们从44例aMCI患者，40例SCD患者（符合SCD plus的主要标准）和48位NC参与者中获得了结构性MRI脑扫描。进行自动脑分割以量化认知相关区域的体积测量。在3组中比较了这些体积测量值并进行了方差分析。此外，我们使用单个区域或多个区域的体积度量进行了支持向量机分析，以进一步评估自动脑容量测定法在区分特定群体与另一群体之间的敏感性。aMCI和SCD患者的萎缩模式相似。通过使用区域体积测量，我们在区分aMCI和SCD与NC方面取得了卓越的性能（平均分类准确度[ACC]> 90％）。但是，将aMCI与SCD区分（ACC <63％）时，性能并不理想。总之，由SCD指定的SCD患者表现出与aMCI患者相似的萎缩模式，这与NC参与者是有区别的。