Study on the changes of cortical structure related indicators in patients with Cushing's disease
HE Kunyu
ZHOU Tao
XU Junpeng
SHANG Guosong
WANG Peng
YU Xinguang
ZHANG Jianning
ZHANG Yanyang
Abstract：Objective To investigate the changes of cortical structure related indicators in patients with Cushing's disease(CD),and to elucidate the specific contributions of cortical thickness(CT)and surface area(SA)to gray matter volume loss in patients.Methods Thirty patients with CD were included in the First Medical Center of Chinese PLA General Hospital as the CD group,and 30 age-,sex-,and education-matched healthy controls were included as the healthy control group(HC group).Preoperative cranial magnetic resonance images were collected for brain structural analysis and searching for core indicators of brain structural alterations.Results Under the condition of no difference at baseline,patients in the CD group showed significant loss of total gray matter volume(P＜0.01)and significant differences in total cortical SA(P＜0.05)and mean CT(P＜0.01),but the normalized effect size of CT was higher(Cohen's d=1.427).Vertex-based analysis demonstrated no significant differences between the two groups of subjects in SA,with only a few areas of reduced SA identified by cluster-level analysis,whereas patients in the CD group showed extensive reductions in gray matter volume and CT compared to the HC group,with a more similar distribution,mainly in the medial frontal gyrus,superior frontal gyrus,superior temporal gyrus,and cingulate gyrus.Conclusion Changes in brain gray matter volume in patients in the CD group arise from CT,not SA.CT in patients in the CD group shows extensive thinning compared to that in the HC group.
Keywords：Cushing's diseasecortisolgray matterbrain cortical thicknesscerebral cortical thinning
Publication Date：2025-03-31
Online Publishing Date：2026-08-26(First online date of this platform, not the publication date of the document)
Pages：6( 324-329 )