Probing bundle-wise abnormalities in patients infected with human immunodeficiency virus using fixel-based analysis: new insights into neurocognitive impairments

• Published in: 中华医学杂志英文版 Vol. 136; no. 18; pp. 2178 - 2186
• Main Authors: Zhao Jing, Jing Bin, Liu Jiaojiao, Chen Feng, Wu Ye, Li Hongjun
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: Chinese
• Published: School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing 100069, China%Department of Radiology, Beijing Youan Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing 100069, China%School of Biomedical Engineering, Capital Medical University, Beijing 100069, China%Beijing Key Laboratory of Fundamental Research on Biomechanics in Clinical Application, School of Biomedical Engineering, Capital Medical University, Beijing 100069, China%School of Computer Science and Engineering, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210094, China 2023
• Subjects: Covariance network; Human immunodeficiency virus; White matter bundle; Fixel-based analysis; Diffusion tensor imaging
• ISSN: 0366-6999
• DOI: 10.1097/CM9.0000000000002829

Background::Changes in white matter (WM) underlie the neurocognitive damages induced by a human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. This study aimed to examine using a bundle-associated fixel-based analysis (FBA) pipeline for investigating the microstructural and macrostructural alterations in the WM of the brain of HIV patients.Methods::This study collected 93 HIV infected patients and 45 age/education/handedness matched healthy controls (HCs) at the Beijing Youan Hospital between January 1, 2016 and December 30, 2016. All HIV patients underwent neurocognitive evaluation and laboratory testing followed by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanning. In order to detect the bundle-wise WM abnormalities accurately, a specific WM bundle template with 56 tracts of interest was firstly generated by an automated fiber clustering method using a subset of subjects. Fixel-based analysis was used to investigate bundle-wise differences between HIV patients and HCs in three perspectives: fiber density (FD), fiber cross