From: Relevance of biomarkers across different neurodegenerative diseases
Biomarker | Target | Advantages | Disadvantages |
---|---|---|---|
Volumetry (vMRI) | Whole brain/medial temporal lobe, hippocampus | Highly reproducible and sensitive to disease-related changes | Late-stage biomarker; cannot provide information on the cause of atrophy |
Cortical thickness | Cerebral cortex | May improve classification between dementia subtypes | Limited to neocortex; cannot be used to determine the cause of atrophy |
Functional MRI (fMRI) | Regional/network functional activity | Can evaluate robusticity of networks at resting state and during tasks | Reproducibility and influence of vasculature unclear |
FLAIR/T2 imaging | White matter lesions | Highly sensitive | Cannot determine the cause of the lesion |
T2*/susceptibility-weighted imaging | Microbleeds/myelin/iron | Microbleed location can aid diagnosis | Undesirable artifacts at air/tissue interfaces; few longitudinal studies to date |
Diffusion tensor imaging | White matter | Highly sensitive to white matter damage | Fairly low resolution and sensitive to artifacts from water diffusion; particularly sensitive to movements |
Neuromelanin-sensitive | Locus coeruleus, substantia nigra | Sensitive to noradrenergic and dopaminergic subcortical nuclei | Semi-quantitative assessment/not disease specific |