Genome-Wide Association Study of Brain Connectivity Changes for Alzheimer’s Disease

Datasets

Our analysis was conducted on the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) dataset publicly available at (adni.loni.usc.edu). The initiative was launched in 2003 as a public-private partnership, led by Principal Investigator Michael W. Weiner, MD (see www.adni-info.org for updates). To match the aim of our study, we combined two types of ADNI datasets:

1. (1)

   DWI volumes was taken at two-time points, at the baseline and after 12 months (we refer to this as follow-up). In this set, we used a cohort comprised of 31 Alzheimer’s disease patients (age: 76.5 ± 7.4 years), and 49 healthy elderly subjects (77.0 ± 5.1) matched by age, as well as 57 MCI subjects (age: 75.34 ± 5.93).

2. (2)

   The PLINK binary files (BED/BIM/FAM) genotypic data for AD, controls and Early MCI.

The DWI and T1-weighted were obtained by using a GE Signa scanner 3 T (General Electric, Milwaukee, WI,…