Voxel Based Morphometry in Myotonic Dystrophy Type I*

Myotonic Dystrophy Type 1 (DM1) is a degenerative and hereditary disorder; its more typical symptoms are muscle weakness and hypotonia, which may lead to several complications like respiratory failure and cardiac arrest. The aim of this project is to find biomarkers that help us to characterize the evolution of this disorder. In the present work, 27 DM1 patients and 27 healthy controls volunteer participants were matched by age, sex and level of education, then underwent an MRI session in a 3T Philips Ingenia scanner with a 32-channel head sense coil. T1 weighted high resolution images were acquired (FOV=240x240, 180 sagittal slices, spatial resolution 1mm³). For the analysis of data a t-test was applied for unpaired samples, and the FSL 5.0.8 software was used. For the post processing T1 images were reoriented to the standard space, then artifact corrected and the voxel based morphometry script was applied.
Clusters with statistical significance (P<0.05) were found in the regions of angular rotation, temporal lobe, frontal cortex and insula.
Atrophy in gray matter is significant in frontal brain areas, which may imply that different cognitive control processes could be altered.