Blood vessel feature description for detection of Alzheimers disease

We describe how image analysis can be used to detect the presence of Alzheimer´s disease. The data are images of brain tissue collected from subjects with and without Alzheimer´s disease. The analysis concentrates on the shape and structure of the blood vessels which are known to be affected by amyloid beta, whose drainage is affected by Alzheimer´s disease. The structure is analysed by a new approach which measures the Influence of the blood vessels´ branching structures. Their density and tortuosity are analysed in conjunction with a boundary description derived using Fourier descriptors. These measures form a feature vector which is derived from the images of brain tissue, and the discrimination capability shows that it is possible to detect the presence of Alzheimer´s disease using these measures and in an automated way. These measures also show that shape information is influenced by the vessels´ branching structure, as known to be consistent with Alzheimer´s disease evolution.