Journal Article

DZNE-2026-00597

http://join2-wiki.gsi.de/foswiki/pub/Main/Artwork/join2_logo100x88.png Tongue volume in spinal and bulbar muscular atrophy (SBMA): an AI-assisted automatic MRI analysis.

Rosenbohm, A. ; Vernikouskaya, I. ; Nosanova, A. ; Nguyen-Younossi, N. ; Haeusler, K. G. ; Weishaupt, J. H.DZNE* ; Rasche, V. ; Müller, H.-P. ; Kassubek, J.Extern*

2026
Steinkopff [Darmstadt]

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Please use a persistent id in citations: doi:10.1007/s00415-026-13921-y

Abstract: Atrophy of the tongue muscle without severe dysarthria is one of the clinical hallmarks of spinal and bulbar muscular atrophy (SBMA), a motor neuron disease caused by an androgene receptor defect. An operator-independent AI-based automatic segmentation of the tongue was applied to 3-D MRI data of the head in SBMA in order to quantify the tongue atrophy. Thirty-nine patients with SBMA and 51 age-matched healthy controls underwent MRI which were used for tongue volume quantification. A single triplanar convolutional neural network of U-Net architecture trained on axial, coronal, and sagittal planes was used for the segmentation of the tongue in MRI scans of the head, the resulting volumes were processed slice-wise across the three orientations and corrected for age. At the group level, a significant atrophy of the tongue was observed in SBMA when compared to controls (p < 0.05). Atrophy correlated well with total SBMA-functional rating scale and even more with bulbar subscores. In summary, the study employed an AI-assisted advanced imaging analysis to quantify the tongue morphology in individuals with SBMA in correlation to clinical bulbar function, suggesting this approach as a potential biomarker for disease assessment.

Keyword(s): Kennedy disease ; Magnetic resonance imaging ; Motor neuron disease ; Muscle volume ; Neuroimaging ; Tongue ; Volumetry

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Contributing Institute(s):

1. Clinical Study Center (Ulm) (Clinical Study Center (Ulm))

Research Program(s):

1. 353 - Clinical and Health Care Research (POF4-353) (POF4-353)

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Database coverage:
; BIOSIS Previews ; Biological Abstracts ; Clarivate Analytics Master Journal List ; Current Contents - Life Sciences ; DEAL Springer ; DEAL Springer ; Ebsco Academic Search ; Essential Science Indicators ; IF >= 5 ; JCR ; Nationallizenz ; SCOPUS ; Science Citation Index Expanded ; Web of Science Core Collection

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