Machine learning models for diagnosis of essential tremor and dystonic tremor using grey matter morphological networks

Honge Gui; Pan Xiao; Bintao Xu; Xiaole Zhao; Hongyu Wang; Li Tao; Xiaoyu Zhang; Qin Li; Xueyan Zhang; Huiyue Chen; Hansheng Wang; Fajin Lv; Tianyou Luo; Oumei Cheng; Jin Luo; Yun Man; Zheng Xiao; Weidong Fang

doi:10.1016/j.parkreldis.2024.106985

Machine learning models for diagnosis of essential tremor and dystonic tremor using grey matter morphological networks

Parkinsonism Relat Disord. 2024 Apr 28:124:106985. doi: 10.1016/j.parkreldis.2024.106985. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Honge Gui¹, Pan Xiao¹, Bintao Xu¹, Xiaole Zhao¹, Hongyu Wang¹, Li Tao¹, Xiaoyu Zhang¹, Qin Li¹, Xueyan Zhang¹, Huiyue Chen¹, Hansheng Wang¹, Fajin Lv¹, Tianyou Luo¹, Oumei Cheng², Jin Luo², Yun Man², Zheng Xiao², Weidong Fang³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Radiology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, China.
² Department of Neurology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, China.
³ Department of Radiology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, China. Electronic address: fwd9707@sina.com.

PMID: 38718478
DOI: 10.1016/j.parkreldis.2024.106985

Abstract

Background: Essential tremor (ET) and dystonic tremor (DT) are the two most common tremor disorders, and misdiagnoses are very common due to similar tremor symptoms. In this study, we explore the structural network mechanisms of ET and DT using brain grey matter (GM) morphological networks and combine those with machine learning models.

Methods: 3D-T1 structural images of 75 ET patients, 71 DT patients, and 79 healthy controls (HCs) were acquired. We used voxel-based morphometry to obtain GM images and constructed GM morphological networks based on the Kullback-Leibler divergence-based similarity (KLS) method. We used the GM volumes, morphological relations, and global topological properties of GM-KLS morphological networks as input features. We employed three classifiers to perform the classification tasks. Moreover, we conducted correlation analysis between discriminative features and clinical characteristics.

Results: 16 morphological relations features and 1 global topological metric were identified as the discriminative features, and mainly involved the cerebello-thalamo-cortical circuits and the basal ganglia area. The Random Forest (RF) classifier achieved the best classification performance in the three-classification task, achieving a mean accuracy (mACC) of 78.7%, and was subsequently used for binary classification tasks. Specifically, the RF classifier demonstrated strong classification performance in distinguishing ET vs. HCs, ET vs. DT, and DT vs. HCs, with mACCs of 83.0 %, 95.2 %, and 89.3 %, respectively. Correlation analysis demonstrated that four discriminative features were significantly associated with the clinical characteristics.

Conclusion: This study offers new insights into the structural network mechanisms of ET and DT. It demonstrates the effectiveness of combining GM-KLS morphological networks with machine learning models in distinguishing between ET, DT, and HCs.

Keywords: Dystonic tremor; Essential tremor; Grey matter morphological networks; Machine learning; Structural magnetic resonance imaging.