Quantitative Susceptibility Mapping in Cognitive Decline: A Review of Technical Aspects and Applications

TL;DR

This review discusses the technical aspects of quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM) and its applications in diagnosing neural disorders related to iron overload and cognitive decline, highlighting its potential as a biomarker tool.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of QSM processing techniques and explores its potential in identifying new biomarkers for neurodegenerative diseases.

Findings

QSM can effectively estimate tissue susceptibility differences due to iron overload.

QSM has potential in diagnosing disorders like Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, and Multiple Sclerosis.

The review outlines future directions for QSM in biomarker discovery.

Abstract

In the human brain, essential iron molecules for proper neurological functioning exist in transferrin (tf) and ferritin (Fe3) forms. However, its unusual increment manifests iron overload, which reacts with hydrogen peroxide. This reaction will generate hydroxyl radicals, and irons higher oxidation states. Further, this reaction causes tissue damage or cognitive decline in the brain and also leads to neurodegenerative diseases. The susceptibility difference due to iron overload within the volume of interest (VOI) responsible for field perturbation of MRI and can benefit in estimating the neural disorder. The quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM) technique can estimate susceptibility alteration and assist in quantifying the local tissue susceptibility differences. It has attracted many researchers and clinicians to diagnose and detect neural disorders such as Parkinsons, Alzheimers, Multiple Sclerosis, and aging. The paper presents a systematic review illustrating QSM fundamentals and its processing steps, including phase unwrapping, background field removal, and susceptibility inversion. Using QSM, the present work delivers novel predictive biomarkers for various neural disorders. It can strengthen new researchers fundamental knowledge and provides insight into its applicability for cognitive decline disclosure. The paper discusses the future scope of QSM processing stages and their applications in identifying new biomarkers for neural disorders.