Vertex-by-vertex analysis: regions of significantly thinner cortex in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis compared with healthy controls represented on an averaged brain map.

<p>Color bar represents t values (p<0.05, uncorrected for multiple comparisons).</p

Cortical regions showing a significant cortical thinning in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis compared with healthy controls overlaid on the lateral (top row) and medial (bottom row) views of the left and right hemispheres.

<p>Regions are color-coded according to the percent difference of cortical thickness between the two groups.</p

Left hemisphere: regions with different mean cortical thickness in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis compared with healthy controls.

<p>Values are mean thickness ± standard deviation (mm) or percent difference.</p>*<p>p values refer to multivariate liner models, adjusting for subject's age (False-Discovery rate corrected).</p

Demographic and clinical data from healthy controls and patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

<p>Numbers are mean ± standard deviation (range) or number. °Disease progression rate = (48-ALSFRS-r score)/time from symptom onset.</p>*<p>Mann-Whitney-U-test or Fisher exact test as appropriate (see text fro further details). Abbreviations: ALS = amyotrophic lateral sclerosis; ALSFRS-r = ALS Functional Rating scale-revised.</p

Relationship between cortical thickness and age.

<p>Top: vertex-by-vertex analysis; regions of significant age-by-group interaction with cortical thickness. Color bar represents t values (p<0.05). Bottom: scatterplots of the correlations between the cortical thickness measures and subject age in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (blue circles) and healthy controls (red squares).</p

Right hemisphere: regions with different mean cortical thickness in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis compared with healthy controls.

<p>Values are mean thickness ± standard deviation (mm) or percent difference.</p>*<p>p values refer to multivariate liner models, adjusting for subject's age (False-Discovery rate corrected).</p

Sensorimotor, cognitive-frontal and cognitive-temporal mask mean cortical thickness in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis compared with healthy controls.

<p>Values are mean thickness ± standard deviation (mm) or percent difference.</p>*<p>p values refer to multivariate liner models, adjusting for subject's age (False-Discovery rate corrected).</p><p>Abbreviations: ALS = amyotrophic lateral sclerosis; C index = Concordance index.</p

TBSS results: areas of decreased fractional anisotropy (FA, red-yellow), and increased mean (MD, green) and radial diffusivity (radD, blue) in PLS patients with cognitive deficits (PLS-cd) <i>vs.</i> healthy controls are displayed on a FA template in the Montreal Neurological Institute space.

<p>FWE =  family wise error.</p

TBSS results: areas of decreased fractional anisotropy (FA, red-yellow), and increased mean (MD, green) and radial diffusivity (radD, blue) in PLS patients with cognitive deficits (PLS-cd) <i>vs.</i> PLS patients without cognitive impairment (PLS-cu) are displayed on a FA template in the Montreal Neurological Institute space.

<p>FWE =  family wise error.</p

Sociodemographic and clinical features of the three study groups.

<p>Values are mean ± standard deviation [range] or number (%). P¹ =  differences between all groups; P² = differences between patient groups. *p<0.05 compared with healthy controls. Group differences in categorial variables (i.e., gender and onset type) were assessed using the Fisher Exact test. Continuous variables (i.e., age, WMH load, disease duration, ALSFRS-r, UMN score, and disease progression rate) were compared using the Kruskal-Wallis or the Mann-Whitney U-test. Disease progression rate = (48-ALSFRS-r score)/time from symptom onset. Abbreviations: ALSFRS-r =  ALS Functional Rating scale-revised; co =  cut-off; MMSE =  mini mental state examination; PLS-cd =  primary lateral sclerosis with cognitive deficits; PLS-cu =  cognitively unimpaired primary lateral sclerosis; UMN score =  upper motor neuron score; WMH =  white matter hyperintensity.</p