Head-to-Head Comparison of Two Popular Cortical Thickness Extraction Algorithms: A Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Study

Background and PurposeThe measurement of cortical shrinkage is a candidate marker of disease progression in Alzheimer’s. This study evaluated the performance of two pipelines: Civet-CLASP (v1.1.9) and Freesurfer (v5.3.0).MethodsImages from 185 ADNI1 cases (69 elderly controls (CTR), 37 stable MCI (sMCI), 27 progressive MCI (pMCI), and 52 Alzheimer (AD) patients) scanned at baseline, month 12, and month 24 were processed using the two pipelines and two interconnected e-infrastructures: neuGRID (https://neugrid4you.eu) and VIP (http://vip.creatis.insa-lyon.fr). The vertex-by-vertex cross-algorithm comparison was made possible applying the 3D gradient vector flow (GVF) and closest point search (CPS) techniques.ResultsThe cortical thickness measured with Freesurfer was systematically lower by one third if compared to Civet’s. Cross-sectionally, Freesurfer’s effect size was significantly different in the posterior division of the temporal fusiform cortex. Both pipelines were weakly or mildly correlated with the Mini Mental State Examination score (MMSE) and the hippocampal volumetry. Civet differed significantly from Freesurfer in large frontal, parietal, temporal and occipital regions (pConclusionsCivet appears slightly more sensitive to the typical AD atrophic pattern at the MCI stage, but both pipelines can accurately characterize the topography of cortical thinning at the dementia stage.