Cerebromicrovascular Disease in Elderly with Diabetes

This entry covers the brain MRI cohort of a single-center, prospective observational study at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston (study GE-79). It examined how type 2 diabetes alters cerebral vasoregulation, perfusion and white matter in older adults, and how this relates to cognition, balance and walking over two years. The MRI images are not part of the public release. PhysioNet hosts, under CC BY 4.0, per-visit summary tables with derived MRI measures, clinical, laboratory, eye, gait and cognitive data, plus ECG and transcranial Doppler recordings.

Composition

The project page reports 69 diabetic and control participants aged 55 to 75 at baseline, of whom 41 completed the two-year follow-up visit. The study protocol planned 60 people with diabetes and 60 controls aged 50 to 85. The released MRI summary table has 77 subjects at the baseline visit (44 diabetic, 33 control) and 44 rows at the two-year visit. Age and sex are listed in the data dictionary but are not columns of the released tables.

Acquisition

MRI was done at baseline and repeated at the two-year visit at 3 Tesla. The protocol names a GE scanner with a quadrature head coil, while the paper PhysioNet asks users to cite gives a GE HDx system. The project page names T1- and T2-weighted imaging, continuous arterial spin labeling perfusion, FLAIR and diffusion tensor imaging. Perfusion was measured at rest and during hyperventilation and CO2 rebreathing. The protocol also lists dual-echo fast spin echo and time-of-flight angiography.

Annotations

The summary tables hold derived values only: regional gray and white matter and CSF volumes in a labelled template, white matter hyperintensity volumes by region, and regional perfusion under the different CO2 conditions.

Known limitations

• MRI images, segmentations and perfusion maps are not shared, and no terms for them are published.
• The participant counts differ between the project page (69 at baseline, 41 at follow-up) and the summary table (77 and 44); the release does not explain the gap.
• The cited paper (Novak et al. 2011) reports 147 participants and does not say how they map onto this release.