Multi-modality sparse representation-based classification for Alzheimer's disease and mild cognitive impairment

•Multi-modality classification on 113 AD, 110 MCI patients and 117 normal controls.•Originally single-modality SRC was extended as a multi-modality framework (wmSRC).•The wmSRC performed better than each single-modality based SRC method.•The wmSRC performed better or equally well compared to MKL, RF and JRC.

Background and objectiveThe discrimination of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and its prodromal stage known as mild cognitive impairment (MCI) from normal control (NC) is important for patients’ timely treatment. The simultaneous use of multi-modality data has been demonstrated to be helpful for more accurate identification. The current study focused on extending a multi-modality algorithm and evaluating the method by identifying AD/MCI.MethodsIn this study, sparse representation-based classification (SRC), a well-developed method in pattern recognition and machine learning, was extended to a multi-modality classification framework named as weighted multi-modality SRC (wmSRC). Data including three modalities of volumetric magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) positron emission tomography (PET) and florbetapir PET from the Alzheimer's disease Neuroimaging Initiative database were adopted for AD/MCI classification (113 AD patients, 110 MCI patients and 117 NC subjects).ResultsAdopting wmSRC, the classification accuracy achieved 94.8% for AD vs. NC, 74.5% for MCI vs. NC, and 77.8% for progressive MCI vs. stable MCI, superior to or comparable with the results of some other state-of-the-art models in recent multi-modality researches.ConclusionsThe wmSRC method is a promising tool for classification with multi-modality data. It could be effective for identifying diseases from NC with neuroimaging data, which could be helpful for the timely diagnosis and treatment of diseases.