Abstract:

Objective     To study the correlation between cognitive functions and volumetric measurements of the cerebellum in patients with mild cognitive impairment(MCI) and Alzheimer′s disease(AD). Methods     Magnetic resonance imaging(MRI) was performed on 18 patients with MCI,18 with AD and 18 healthy controls. Cerebellar tracing was performed using the manual segmentation function implemented in the BRAINS2 software, and the cerebellum was divided into four substructures(anterior lobe, superior posterior lobe, inferior posterior lobe and corpus medullare).The total cerebellar volume and the volumes of cerebellar substructures were compared among the three groups, and the relevance between the cerebellar volume and scores on mini-mental state examination（MMSE）was analyzed. Results    The volumes of posterior cerebellar lobes were significantly smaller in AD patients when compared with the healthy controls. In the AD group, atrophy of the inferior posterior cerebellar region was associated with poorer cognitive performance. In contrast, no significant difference was observed in the total cerebellar volume and the volumes of cerebellar substructures between subjects with MCI and the healthy controls. Conclusion     Measurement of the cerebellum size by MRI is helpful in the diagnosis of AD, and atrophy of the posterior cerebellar region of AD patients is associated with their poorer cognitive performance.

Key words: Cognition disorders; Alzheimer disease; Cerebellum; Magnetic resonanse imaging