Clusters of male and female Alzheimer's disease patients in the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) database

Abstract

This paper presents homogeneous clusters of patients, identified in the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) data population of 317 females and 342 males, described by a total of 243 biological and clinical descriptors. Clustering was performed with a novel methodology, which supports identification of patient subpopulations that are homogeneous regarding both clinical and biological descriptors. Properties of the constructed clusters clearly demonstrate the differences between female and male Alzheimer's disease patient groups. The major difference is the existence of two male subpopulations with unexpected values of intracerebral and whole brain volumes.

Keywords: Alzheimer’s disease; Clustering; Female and male subpopulations.

Fig. 1

Average values of Alzheimer’s Disease Assessment Scale (ADAS13) and intracerebral volume (ICV) for all females with clinical dementia rating score equal zero (black circle), females in cluster F0 (black triangle), females in cluster F1 (black square), all males with clinical dementia rating score equal zero (white circle), males in clusters M0A and M0B (white triangles), and males in clusters M1 and M2 (white squares)